The Pagan Trailer Park

The Pagan Trailer Park
By Molly Cochran
Part I
Imbolc
February 2
The first of eight seasons marking the wheel of the year, Imbolc (pronounced Immolegge, Gaelic
for ―in the belly‖) is the time of promise, the spring before spring when the first flowers rise out of the
snow and the sun’s light grows almost imperceptibly brighter. To some it is the dead-end of winter, cold,
dreary, a time of relentless sameness. Around the world, people despair at this time. They curse their fate;
sometimes, in their hopelessness, they take their very lives. But to the creatures of the fields and skies, and
to those among us who truly see, Imbolc is the pregnant time, when all things are possible and the endless
cycle of life begins anew.
Chapter One
Mo
The End
It was a year of zeros: Mo was fifty years old that year, her husband Desmond was sixty, and the
woman he left her for was twenty-eight. Two plus eight equals ten, which is a zero. The whole year was
pretty much a zero.
Oh,stop it. This is why it takes me five years to write a book that any hack could crank out in six
months.
In fact, the above is not even the book I‘m writing. It‘s the book I want to write, the one I would
write if:
1) Anyone were interested in reading about fifty-year-old women
2) The publishing industry were putting out novels that weren‘t about lawyers,
vampires, or the Holy Grail
3) I knew how it ended.
Because it isn‘t really a book at all. That‘s just how I think about my life – as if it were a
novel that I‘m in the process of revising. It makes sense. Life itself only makes sense when it‘s not
real. Novels require structure, balance, pacing, and a reasonable unfolding of connected events.
Characters behave rationally and react dramatically. Main characters are resilient and intelligent,
never self-pitying, bitter, foolish, or unduly frightened, at least until the plot warrants a sustained
rush of terror which compels heroic action.
So novels – novels that sell, anyway – aren‘t about lonely, angry, middle-aged women
with no future standing hip deep in an overflowing cesspool of regret. That‘s why I‘m not writing
that novel, the one that keeps intruding on my thoughts and prevents me—deliberately, I think –
from working on my ―real‖ novel, the deathless tome that earns my daily bread (though bread is
just about all it does earn, and stale bread at that), this novel:
―I am Araiama Mari, priestess of the goddess Mari, creator of the world!‖ The tall, slender
woman raised her sword high in the air above her as she invoked the spirits of the temple. ―Attend me, ye
greater and lesser beings, for it is my voice you hear across the abyss between the worlds, my face you see
through the mists of time...‖
The wind blew in from the sea, loud as thunder. Today was the festival of Imbolc, the
beginning of the beginning, when life was conceived in the belly before the mind. It was dawn, the
final dawn for Araiama, though she had no idea of that. Death, like life, was in her belly…
Ugh. That is, I mean, hooray. Yippie. Wahoo. Concentrate, Mo, on the book you‘re being
paid to write, a fantasy novel about a priestess living in the far distant past who leads her tribe out
of their inhospitable homeland to a new life fraught with adventure. Her name is Araiama. She is
young, beautiful
No. She is old and ugly and alone
Beautiful, and possessed of an extraordinary gift: She is able to call snakes to her.
From the beginning of her life, this gift has set Araiama apart from others, causing her
tribe to view her with both awe and revulsion. A natural spiritual leader, she is surrounded by a
coterie of young female acolytes who
are killed
who found a community of women, like Amazons, I suppose, except they aren‘t warlike, and
through Araiama‘s teaching, they all develop these, well, not powers, exactly – that‘s just too
hokey -- but sensitivities beyond the scope of normal human ability.
They were killed.
What?
They were killed before they could develop anything. They were children, and their lives
were wasted.
Okay, see what I mean? Do you see why I can‘t get anything done? It‘s as if this voice –
the Fickle Finger of Fate voice – were messing up my book on purpose. Araiama is young, damn
it, she is gorgeous and has long blonde hair and eyes like blue ice, and she meets this equally
gorgeous man because that‘s what sells books, and nobody gets killed except for incidental
characters who readers don‘t care about anyway, and
―We have begun our final descent into Chattanooga, where the temperature is a balmy sixty-two
degrees. Please make sure your seat belts are fastened and your tray tables in the upright position…‖
Crap. It took me an hour to write this, and none of it means anything. I don‘t even know what the
hell I‘m doing, which book I‘m writing, or who‘s supposed to be talking. I just seem to keep fighting with
myself.
Dr. Lehman, my shrink back in the days when I could afford one, would have called it selfsabotage.
Yes. Self-sabotage is why I‘ve been working – if you can ascribe that term to worry, rumination,
and panic – on this stupid book for five years, and I don‘t even know the story yet. Or rather, I thought I
did, but clearly my subconscious is at war with my outline. Self-sabotage is why I want to write about
myself instead of gorgeous young Araiama of the snake-charming superpowers. Self-sabotage is the reason
I keep analyzing my book instead of writing it.
Self(Extra Space)
Rude flight attendant shut the cover of my laptop while giving me a smiling tongue-lashing about
not using electronics during landing.
Well, anyway, I‘m in Tennessee now, nestled among rolling green hills and brilliant blue skies.
Actually, that was just a memory, something I saw after the stew shut me off from my computer. It was the
first time I‘d looked out the window of the plane. Tennessee is a very pretty state, or so I gather from that
one fleeting but appreciative look. Presently I‘m in the city of Chattanooga, ensconced in a very modern,
very noisy restaurant called the Metro Cafe where my friend Katherine Davis has promised to meet me for
lunch.
Katherine and I were roommates during our early years in New York. I was working in a virtually
unpaid position as an editorial assistant for a mass market paperback publisher while Katherine, fresh out of
Julliard, rented herself out as a freelance organist for weddings, funerals, and the occasional symphony.
Then we both married, Katherine to a young oil company executive named Richard Davis, and I to
Satan. While Satan – that is, Desmond Owens, now-famous novelist and bon vivant and I, known to the
media as Desmond‘s charming and quietly competent helpmate, remained in New York, Katherine moved
with Richard to Chattanooga along with the new corporate offices of Magnetica, Richard‘s firm.
For Katherine, it was a dream come true. Never a city girl, Katherine was delighted to abandon the
chaos of Manhattan for the clean air of Tennessee. Plus Richard got a big promotion, which propelled the
two of them out of their squalid one-bedroom apartment and into a McMansion in an upscale development,
where they lived happily ever after.
Well, sort of. The reason they could afford the McMansion was because Richard had worked his
way up to a position as Magnetica‘s vice president in charge of Asian operations, which meant that he spent
most of his time in China. I think Katherine once told me that during the past twenty years, he had been
home a total of fifty three days.
How could she even remember what her husband looked like from one encounter to the next? I
guess it didn‘t matter to some people if they lived alone.
It sure mattered to me.
So it goes. I sigh, loud enough to make myself feel put-upon. The waitress – a beautiful
Twentysomething with pink hair -- comes over to ask if I am all right, as if she fears that I am expiring of
old age at her table. I stare her down, then try to cover my embarrassment by studying the menu set before
me. The selection at the Metro is huge, filled with hundreds of overpriced nibbles from two-inch long
Vietnamese spring rolls to a baby portabella mushroom stuffed with crabmeat, all low in calories and, as I
can tell by looking around at the tables around me, all with portions that are anorexially small. No wonder
it‘s Katherine‘s favorite restaurant.
As I finish my Cosmo, fielding yet another inquiry from the waitress, I am becoming increasingly
irritated. The fact is, I know that Katherine is probably within fifty feet of me, in her car, primping. Taking
off the glasses she needs to drive, but which are never seen outside her automobile. Refreshing her lipstick.
Poofing her coiffure with a special pick designed to penetrate helmet hair. Making sure that her makeup is
perfect, her nails oval, her chin taut, her breasts perky, her eyelashes lush, her nose matte, her earrings
tasteful. What am I doing waiting, once again, for Katherine, whose perfect face, hair, and life serve to
point out how spectacularly second-rate I am? I mean, look at me, fifty years old, with no career, no
husband, no money, and soon, no home.
We‘d had two, Desmond and I. The Manhattan co-op where Desmond had lived since the early
‗70‘s reverted to him after the divorce. I got Cedarwood, the estate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It‘s a
beautiful property, fifteen acres including a formal garden, kitchen garden, and a landscaped island in the
middle of a man-made pond in front of the house. The house itself is Tudor from the 1920‘s, twenty rooms
on three floors, and full of secret passageways and interesting architectural touches. It‘s a house anyone
would want – as long as they didn‘t have to maintain it. The copper plumbing has been worn to paperthinness, the slate roof is caving in, the appliances are ancient. I guess we never spent enough time at
Cedarwood to realize just how unlivable it was, and somehow, despite the big book advances we were
getting, Desmond and I never got around to making major repairs.
I stayed there by myself after the divorce – I‘d stopped writing, anyway, so it didn‘t matter where I
lived, having decided to devote all my time to bitter rumination. Then the stock market crashed (although
―crash‖ is a term that was never used), and I found myself alone in a big empty house in which nothing
worked, including its owner.
That was nearly a year ago. Since then, I‘ve been looking for somewhere to light after Cedarwood
sells, an event which I‘m beginning to realize may never occur. Nevertheless, it‘s been a heady feeling that
I can literally live anywhere I want. The first place I went was Italy, which is also a great place to visit. But
I soon came to understand that, language barrier notwithstanding, it‘s hard to set down roots in a foreign
country by oneself, particularly if one is a woman and an American.
Following that revelation, I slogged down one coast of Florida and up another. I visited friends in
central California. I explored the Black Hills area of South Dakota, beautiful and surprisingly mild in
winter. I spent a month in Minneapolis, going to avant-garde theaters and eating Caribou. None were right.
Oh, all were lovely, and certainly as good as Manhattan, where I‘d never felt totally comfortable, or the
area of eastern Pennsylvania where Cedarwood was located. It was just that there was no place that was
dramatically better than any other. The northeast had too much traffic. Florida, though warm, was too new.
The midwest was too snowy.
And this, too: It‘s hard to let go of a life.
Nevertheless, it was necessary. Cedarwood had to go, even though the American economy was
falling into the worst decline on record since 1907. As of now, the selling price of my house is just about on
a par with that of a fifth floor walkup in the South Bronx.
There is, however, an interested prospective buyer. Hooray for me.
So I guess my divorce is almost final. All I have to do now is to find an inexpensive but secluded
place to live. Frankly, I‘d never have thought of Tennessee if I hadn‘t gotten a call out of the blue from a
realtor here who told me about a hundred-acre property going for a song. I guess the owners must be in as
bad shape as I am.
Anyway, that‘s why I‘m here. Looking for a place to die cheaply. That‘s what it‘s come down to,
really. Not only has my husband left me for a younger woman, but my best chance for survival seems to lie
in living out the rest of my days in Buttfuck, Tennessee.
Okay, Beltsville. According to the map the realtor sent me, it was some forty miles north, or
northeast, or northwest, of Chattanooga. All I know for sure about Beltsville is that you can‘t get cellphone
service there, which is fine with me. I never want to communicate with anyone again.
I‘m beginning to think it was a mistake to tell Katherine I was coming at all. I didn‘t really want to
see her new jewelry or hear about the agonies of changing hairdressers. What if he doesn’t understand that
my head is flat in the back? Or that I have a cowlick right on my hairline?
Right. I‘m going to ease my chair back and hope for a quick and reasonably unmortifying escape.
Damn. Too late. Katherine is walking through the door at this moment. She‘s wearing a green
wool suit and black pearls, even though she‘d told me that she had nowhere to go afterwards besides the
church where she‘s the organist. Typical Katherine job. She probably only does it to keep her fingers
limber. Her hair is beautiful, as always, a lush brown discretely highlighted by barely perceptible streaks of
ash blonde. Katherine‘s colorist is obviously magnificent, as is her manicurist, who has taken ten years off
her hands with the selection of a beautifully neutral nail polish and expert finger massage. Katherine still
wears high heels and silk stockings.
And a garter belt.
Weird. There it is, just the shimmer of an outline, barely discernable beneath the elegant wool suit.
She looks like – well, like a woman who still has sex because she wants to. Women who are long-married
don‘t look like this. Especially if they‘ve only seen their husbands for 53 days in the past twenty years.
―Am I late?‖ she asks, her voice flat.
―Of course,‖ I say, deciding on a bowl of lemongrass soup. It seems to be the most filling single
item on the menu.
Chapter Two
Katherine
Of all days to be late, Katherine thought, fighting to keep her face serene as she walked what
seemed to be a mile to the table where Mari waited, typing on her laptop, obviously annoyed.
Or Mo, rather. Her oldest friend Mari Auvergne had become Mo Owens more than twenty years
ago, but Katherine never could get used to calling Mari ―Mo,‖ as if she were one of the Three Stooges. It
was a terrible name, ridiculous, unfeminine, un-Mari-like. But that was what Desmond called her, and Mari
had adopted it totally. No one called her anything but Mo now. Even her books were by Mo Owens, or
more accurately, by Desmond Owens and Mo Owens.
They were successful. Every year a movie based on one of the Owens‘ novels came out. Mari –
Mo – had written a couple of things on her own since the divorce (at least that was what Katherine had
heard) but they hadn‘t been nearly as popular as the Owens/Owens books. Why that should be the case,
Katherine had no idea, since she never read any books by anyone. It was hard enough to find time for
magazines.
So there Mo sat, completely at ease in her body in a way Katherine envied, wearing a brown
sweater and no jewelry, and being fine with that while Katherine had spent ninety minutes pulling herself
together, and could already feel the cowlick at the front of her hairline pulling loose.
Mo never worried about stupid things like hair, or even weight. She was content to wear an 8, or
even, at times, a 10. Katherine herself suffered major trauma at any size above 4. That was the thing: Not
only was Mo brilliant, accomplished, and creative, but she was also attractive in a way that Katherine, for
all her effort, knew she could never achieve. During their single-girls-in-Manhattan days, men were always
falling over themselves around Mo (then Mari). She never had a problem, as most women did, getting them
to take her seriously. She was never asked to make coffee. Men didn‘t ogle her. They just wanted to be
around her. Mo could have married anyone she wanted back then, but she‘d chosen Desmond, a dissipated,
alcoholic Don Juan who was too old for her and too unfaithful for anyone.
Then again, he‘d come from a very wealthy family. Maybe that was why Mari married him. It was
certainly a good enough reason: The Owenses lived in a world that Katherine could only dream about, a
world of cocktail parties at Lincoln Center, weekends in Newport, vacations on Greek registry yachts,
luncheons with movie stars. Vanity Fair magazine once referred to the couple as the Nick and Nora Charles
of the Nineties. Katherine, ashamed of her ignorance, had quickly looked up the reference. Nick and Nora
were characters in a 1930‘s detective novel called The Thin Man, written by Dashiell Hammett. Katherine,
who subscribed to Vanity Fair, realized at that moment that some people read the magazine for reasons
other than to see which designers were favored by prominent socialites.
She felt a thin line of perspiration forming on her upper lip, and it took every iota of will she could
summon not to turn around and dash to the ladies‘ room to blot it.
Oh, why had she ever suggested that they see each other! Their friendship belonged in the past.
Even though they spoke occasionally on the phone, they knew nothing about one another now. When Mo
mentioned – and it was just a mention, not in any way an invitation – that she would be coming to
Tennessee to look at some property she wanted to buy, Katherine had immediately insisted that they get
together. So Mo had obliged, even though she‘d have to drive from Chattanooga to Beltsville right after
lunch.
Funny that she should choose Beltsville, of all places.
Beltsville was Katherine‘s secret. Or so she had thought. And now Mari – Mari, with her blazing
intellect and cruel insight… It was as if God Himself were making sure that Katherine felt the full force of
her guilt.
Well, she reasoned, there was no point in getting worked up over what may turn out to be nothing.
Mo Owens wasn‘t about to move to Beltsville, Tennessee. This was just a whim. It would come to nothing.
The important thing, Katherine admonished herself, was to stay cheerful. Keep things light. Don‘t bother
Mari – damn it, Mo – with your own stupid problems. Mo Owens was an important person, a busy person,
and she doesn‘t want to hear a lot of complaints from her small-town acquaintances.
―Hi!‖ Katherine said, putting on a bright smile. ―Am I late?‖
―Of course,‖ Mo answered, closing the lid of her laptop.
Of course she was late. Katherine checked her watch. Forty minutes. Well, thirty-five, really. But
she never should have mentioned it. What a brainless thing to say.
―I‘m sorry,‖ Katherine said. ―I‘m so rude. Please forgive me.‖ Her gaze wandered for a moment
while she tried to think of how to save the situation. The only thing she came up with was to maintain the
entirely false smile she had plastered onto her face. ―So. How are you, Mari? I mean –‖
―Mari‘s all right,‖ Mo said, touching her hand. ―Now tell me what‘s wrong.‖
Katherine‘s eyes, the only part of her that moved, registered panic. ―What? Nothing. Nothing‘s
wrong. I‘m fine. Everything‘s fine, really.‖
―Come off it,‖ Mo said. ―You look like something from a taxidermist‘s. Your face is in a state of
rictus.‖
Katherine‘s valiant but chilling smile finally vanished. A loose lock of hair fell, for the first time
in recent memory, onto Katherine‘s wrinkle-free forehead. Her eyes crossed as she spotted it, as if the hair
were a wild beast come to roost upon her face, and she quickly pushed it back into place with one hand
while extracting a mirror from her handbag with the other. Thus armed, she deftly wove the errant lock
back into place. Had they not been in an eating establishment, Katherine would have produced a can of
hair spray then and there.
As it was, she merely put the mirror away, holding her head very still, while two large tears spilled
out of her eyes and cut mascara-colored rivers down her cheeks. In another moment the lock of hair fell
down again. Katherine gave a small shudder, an apologetic smile, and then covered her face with her
napkin.
―Good God, Katherine. What is it?‖ Mo asked.
―Nothing, I said.‖ She blew her nose into a rose-shaped handkerchief. ―I‘m just glad to see you.‖
―Right. I can tell.‖
In the ensuing silence Katherine sobbed, muted, into her napkin. The waitress arrived. ―Are you
all right?‖ she asked again.
―Yes, we‘re both splendid,‖ Mo said.
The waitress looked dubious. ―Okay,‖ she said. ―Well, have you guys made up your minds?‖
―Guys,‖ it seemed, had replaced the stolid titles of ―Miss‖ or ―Ma‘am‖ as the preferred mode of address in
all but the most formal restaurants. Although Mo could picture herself as sexless enough to be thought of
as a ―guy‖, it remained difficult to connect the term with someone as blatantly feminine as Katherine Davis.
Particularly in her present hysterical state.
―We guys will have lemongrass soup,‖ Mo announced, handing the menus back to the server. ―At
least this guy will. And two beers.‖
―White wine,‖ Katherine corrected, squeaking into her napkin. ―Chardonnay.‖ Even in extremis,
Katherine was conscientious about caloric content. If she was going to drown her sorrows, the alcohol
would be as low in sugar as possible.
After the waitress left, Katherine sobbed for a time in silence. ―I‘m sorry,‖ she said. ―Really,
really sorry.‖
Mo made a meaningless gesture with her hands. She had never been very good with menopausal
wretches like herself, Katherine knew. Her shame was complete.
―You‘re not flipping out because your hair got messed up, are you?‖ Mo asked suspiciously.
Katherine sobbed louder.
―All right, I‘m sorry. Is it Richard?‖ Wild guess.
―No. Well, kind of. I guess so. Yes.‖
―A wide range of possibilities,‖ Mo ventured.
Katherine sniffed bravely, lifting her face from the napkin. ―He‘s retiring.‖
Mo nodded. ―Yes? Is that it?‖
Katherine resumed sobbing.
―Well, isn‘t that a good thing? I mean, he‘s been gone for… oh.‖ At once she understood. The
high heels, the garter belt. Mo‘s face split into a grin. ―Good God, you‘re having an affair,‖ she said.
―Aren‘t you.‖ It wasn‘t a question.
―I need the restroom,‖ Katherine said.
(Extra Space)
Oh God Oh God Oh God.
Katherine sprinted to the ladies‘ room, shamefully aware that every eye in the restaurant was on
her. Every eye. And every eye on the faces of the passersby in the window. They would all be talking about
her. Some of them might even know her. There‘s Katherine Davis, they would say. The one with the
cowlick. The adulteress.
Oh, God.
She hadn‘t wanted to be an adulteress. Oh, the very word, the very thought of the word made her
skin crawl. Katherine had been the Senior Queen at St. Benedict High. She had been the darling of the
piano department at Cincinnati Conservatory, and had made a respectable showing at Julliard. She had
received the Good Citizen award at her church six years in a row. How had she sunk so low that someone
she hadn‘t even spoken to in six months could see it in an instant? Was it written all over her face?
It hadn‘t all been her fault, though. It was China. When Richard had first got the offer to help start
up the Magnetica office in Hong Kong, she‘d never dreamed that he would be gone for twenty-five years.
He‘d wanted her to go with him. ―It‘ll be an adventure,‖ he had said. ―An exotic vacation. You‘d
like that, wouldn‘t you?‖
―Eating eels and riding in rickshaws? No thank you,‖ she had answered primly.
There were basic things about Katherine that Richard, as a new husband, had yet to understand.
One of those things was that Katherine had only eaten fish twice in her life, and had not liked it on either
occasion. Of course, after her twenties, when the real siege against weight gain set in, she grew to
understand the low-carb benefits of broiled salmon and ocean perch, of steamed shrimp, and even of crab
legs served without butter. But at the time, she was simply not prepared to eat anything she hadn‘t grown
up around.
She was sheltered in other ways, too. Katherine, at that time, had never ridden a bus. She had
never had a pimple. She had never gone all day with a run in her pantyhose. She had never leaked through
a sanitary napkin. She had never eaten more than a single scoop of ice cream at one time (At the time of
her luncheon with Mo Owens, this particular fact about Katherine Davis‘ life had not changed). She had
never seen dirt under her fingernails. She had never worn pants that were too short, or a bra that was too
big. She had never laughed so that her gums showed. She had never had a cavity. She had never, ever,
even after gym class, smelled of human sweat.
And she was not about to leave her newly purchased suburban home with its brick patio and a
flowering dogwood in the back yard to live in the teeming cities of China.
―I don‘t think you‘d have to eat eels,‖ Richard said thoughtfully, trying to persuade her with his
engineer‘s logic. ―Not exclusively, anyway.‖
But in the end he had acquiesced and gone on alone. Richard was very busy during those early
years with Magnetica, and no doubt his ascendency in the company was due in part to the long hours he
was able to work. Married yet unfettered, he was the perfect company man, and the company had rewarded
him.
As for Katherine, the first years of lonely, resentful solitude (she had truly believed that Richard
would give up the Asia assignment if she refused to go with him, and was sorely disappointed when he left
on his own) eventually gave way to a sort of plucky independence that Katherine had never before
considered. With the steadily growing numbers on the checks her husband sent home every month,
Katherine was able to change her custom draperies every five years, and her furniture and artwork with
satisfying frequency. She was able to have her walls painted inside and out often enough so that not a
fingermark nor a grease spot ever appeared on their surfaces, and to build a wardrobe that would be the
envy of every woman in Chattanooga.
Richard came home five times during the first year of his Chinese experience, four the second.
Within five years, they had mutually, if silently, agreed upon a twice-yearly visitation. For these occasions
Katherine would throw a biannual open house, over which she would fret and worry for weeks, ordering
flower arrangements that Richard never noticed, wearing clothing by the top designer of the moment,
having her hair highlighted just so, inviting all of Magnetica‘s VIPs within a fifty mile radius—Katherine
made a point of keeping in touch with the wives of prominent executives in Richard‘s company—and
everyone else she could think of. For the first of these soirees, she even included everyone in her high
school and college graduating classes, just to keep up the numbers.
Katherine was a wonderful hostess, charming but unobtrusive, inventive in her use of lighting,
landscaping, and the other assets her home had to offer. And there were always flowers, not only from the
florist, but also from Katherine‘s own lush flower gardens. She was president of the local Garden Club,
and assured her place in that organization‘s history by singlehandedly designing a perennial garden and
fountain for the entryway of the Chattanooga public library. In summer, her open houses in honor of
Richard‘s return to civilization were graced with the perfume of dozens of varieties of unblemished
blossoms, both inside the house and outside on the grounds.
It did not really matter that Richard Davis did not seem to be particularly thrilled about these
occasions. He was pleased, of course, to see the vice presidents (and on more than one occasion, the
president himself) of Magnetica, but during the limited time he and Katherine spent together, he grew to be
as awkward as he had been when they had first started dating.
Indeed, over the years Katherine had begun to think of Richard less as a husband and more as an
occasional visitor whose presence was fraught with anxiety. Sometimes, over the dinners at the city‘s best
restaurants, while both of them picked desultorily at their food, Katherine would surreptitiously peer over at
Richard and wonder what had ever possessed her to marry him.
He was perfectly acceptable, of course, nice looking without being disconcertingly handsome,
conservative in manner, dress, and politics, competent in financial matters, knowledgeable about world
affairs, and responsive to all her questions, no matter how trivial, although he rarely questioned Katherine
about anything beyond the general state of her health or the weather.
For several years they had attempted to make love during his return visits. These occasions were
without a doubt the most unpleasant aspect of Katherine‘s existence. It was not that she found anything
wrong with Richard‘s body, or even with the act itself. It was, rather, the feeling—which persisted no
matter how much she wrestled with it intellectually—that she was sleeping with someone she barely knew.
On some level, Katherine felt as if she were stripping off her clothes for a man she had only encountered
that day at the airport, after an obligatory conversation about the seasonal rainfall.
To quell her sense of guilt, Katherine decided to take a job. She answered an ad posted on the
bulletin board of the local chapter of the American Organists‘ Guild for an organist at St. Peter‘s Episcopal
Church in Beltsville. The ad was more than six months old, as no one from Chattanooga wanted to drive 40
miles for the pittance St. Peter‘s was offering, and no organist from Beltsville was willing to ruin his
reputation by attending an Episcopal church in the middle of deep Baptist country.
None of these factors affected Katherine. She was already an Episcopalian, she didn‘t need a big
salary, she had all the time in the world, and she welcomed the distraction of a long drive. Besides, she
hadn‘t played the organ since her New York days, and looked forward to sitting again at the console of a
great instrument.
Actually, the console at which she ended up sitting was an electric organ that sounded, to
Katherine‘s exquisitely tuned ear, like an organ grinder‘s squeezebox. But what it did have, what no other
church in Beltsville or Nashville or New York or the entire world had, was Forrest McCormick.
(Extra Space)
Forrest was an odd man. He was shorter than Katherine, prone toward stockiness, and virtually
silent. A lifelong bachelor, his ties were perennially stained with egg. His trousers were all too short. He cut
his hair himself. His income from teaching music at Beltsville High School was small, if not downright
inadequate, and he received next to nothing for his work directing the choir at St. Peter‘s. He had never
dated. He knew nothing about horticulture, fashion, interior decorating, or any of the other things dear to
Katherine‘s heart. He was, in fact, as close to being Katherine Davis‘ polar opposite as it was possible for a
human being to be.
When she walked into the sanctuary, the wheezing organ was playing the most beautiful music
Katherine had ever heard. So poor was the instrument on which he played that no untrained ear would have
found anything noteworthy about the composition, but Katherine, who was herself a consummate musician,
knew that she was listening to genius. The top register was like the singing of angels, while the midvoice
cascaded in silky sensuality above a rumbling pasaglia bass.
She stood in the center aisle, at his back, staring up at his uncombed hair as the music stroked her
shamelessly, intimately. Her breathing quickened. Her hands trembled. She closed her eyes, allowing the
music to surround her, penetrate her. Love her.
When the last note hung on the air, touching her like the memory of a kiss, he turned around.
―That was for you,‖ he said softly.
―The… You mean the…‖ her voice was hoarse.
―When I was told you were coming, I wrote it for you.‖
She inhaled sharply. ―But I only called this morning.‖
He blinked once, slowly, saying nothing.
Katherine felt herself perspiring. She wondered if her armpits were stained. ―How long have you
been here?‖ she whispered. ―In Beltsville, I mean.‖
―Five years,‖ he answered. ―Since your party.‖
She stepped backward, startled. Five years! It must have been at her first open house. Katherine
had been so nervous that she barely remembered the event. But some of her old acquaintances had come,
and Richard‘s, too. They had gone to the same high school, and had had many friends in common. Forrest
McCormick, however, could not have been considered a friend to either one of the Davises.
Katherine and Richard had been Prom Queen and King. Richard was St Benedict‘s star
quarterback, and had led the school‘s football team from nonentity status to state champions in their
division. Katherine was the county‘s Junior Miss, and her picture had appeared in Seventeen Magazine.
Forrest McCormick ate lunch with the theater people.
Yes, she remembered now. Forrest had been at that first open house, to her surprise. She had
spoken with him briefly, flattered that he would travel such a long distance to attend he party. Had he had
other business in Chattanooga? She didn‘t remember. There had been so many guests…
―When did you come back?‖
―I never left,‖ he said, looking at his hands.
―After the… the party…‖
―I found a job here in Beltsville.‖ He smiled. ―Chattanooga was too expensive.‖
―But you never told me.‖
―Would it have mattered?‖
―Well, of course. Of course…‖ She cut herself off. She was lying, and she knew that he knew it. It
would not have made a whit of difference to her if Forrest had moved in next door to her.
But she hadn‘t been so lonely then.
And she hadn‘t heard his music.
At the time of her luncheon with Mo Owens, Katherine and Forrest had been lovers for twelve
years.
(Extra Space)
By the time she returned to the table, Mo was nearly finished with her soup. ―Do you mind?‖ Mo
asked. ―It was getting cold.‖
―Oh, Mari, I‘m sorry,‖ Katherine said, feeling herself tear up again.
―Good God, but that‘s boring,‖ Mo said. ―So who is it? Anyone I know?‖
―No!‖
―Does that mean yes?‖
―No.‖ Katherine downed her Chardonnay. ―It‘s someone I went to high school with. He‘s a
teacher in Beltsville.‖
―Beltsville? That‘s where I –―
―I know. But you aren‘t really going to move to Beltsville, are you? I mean, it‘s… very
provincial.‖
―Sounds like a hotbed of lust to me,‖ Mo said.
―Oh, God, Katherine anguished. ―What am I going to do?‖
―You mean with Richard?‖
―That‘s horrible, isn‘t it? My husband loses his job, and all I can think about is that I‘ll have to
live with him.‖
―But you don‘t,‖ Mo said. ―He‘s been gone for decades. Marriages fall apart if they‘re not
tended.‖
―But Richard will think I‘m deserting him because he lost his job,‖ Katherine said.
―Is that worse than the truth?‖
With a squeal, Katherine sobbed into her napkin. There was a long silence. Finally Mo spoke.
―Maybe you should just tell him what‘s going on.‖
―Oh, that would be great, just great.‖
―It might be the best thing. Is it serious, this other thing?‖
Katherine shook her head. ―I don‘t know. I suppose. He‘s asked me to marry him a hundred
times.‖
―And?‖
―And of course that‘s ridiculous. Forrest‘s a schoolteacher.‖ She covered her face with her
handkerchief. ―Well, that‘s not everything. I just don‘t want a confrontation. I don‘t want to be the bad
guy.‖
―And you want to keep Richard‘s money.‖
―No, that‘s not it! Oh, God,‖ Katherine moaned. ―I‘m just no good.‖
―Check,‖ Mo called, signaling the waitress.
―I don‘t want to be responsible for ruining someone‘s life,‖ Katherine said.
―Aren‘t we powerful,‖ Mo said. ―Listen, Katherine. Richard is a big boy. He can find his way out
of whatever unhappiness the truth would bring. It would still be better than being lied to. In the end, he‘ll
probably respect you for it.‖
―The way you respect Desmond?‖ Katherine asked flatly. ―Were you happy to find out that your
husband was leaving you for another woman?‖
Mo looked as if she had been shot.
―I‘m sorry,‖ Katherine said at once, placing her hand on Mo‘s wrist. ―I know you probably want
to throw your soup in my face.‖
―That‘s all right,‖ Mo said at last. ―You‘ve probably wanted to throw it in mine for the past half
hour. Besides, it probably wouldn‘t make much difference, given the state of your makeup. Or mine, for
that matter.‖
―Oh, God –‖
―Will you stop saying that?‖ Mo took a deep breath. ―To answer your question, yes. That is, I
wasn‘t happy that Desmond was leaving me, naturally, but I‘m glad I learned the truth,‖ she said quietly.
―At least I‘m starting over with a clean slate.‖
Katherine nodded, but they could both read the panic in the spaces between Mo‘s words.
She was selling her home in order to have enough money to live on while she tried to reestablish
her career. If she failed, it would be as if she had just come out of high school, except that she was nearing
the age of social security. She had no man in her life, and no prospects for meeting one. And though it was
fashionable for women, even married women, to declare that they needed no one except themselves to find
happiness, Mo‘s future, which Katherine saw clearly, would consist of an endless series of odious tasks—
taking out the garbage, shoveling snow, repairing faucets, mowing grass. Man work.
―You won‘t be alone,‖ Mo said, reading her thoughts.
Katherine nodded. Her apparent agreement was not because she was convinced that having
Forrest was enough to make up for turning her life upside down, but because the prospect of ending up in
Mo‘s situation was too sobering for her to speak about it. She rose, sniffing and dabbing at her lips, which
had not yet touched her food. ―I need to fix my makeup again,‖ she said.
(Extra Space)
While Katherine was gone, Mo called the realtor. While the phone rang, she rummaged for the
woman‘s card. It was an old fashioned name, Violet or –
―Victoria Tanner,‖ a syrupy southern voice announced.
―It‘s Mo Owens,‖ Mo said. ―Are we still on for three o‘clock?‖ she asked.
―Absolutely!‖ the agent gushed. ―And it‘s a perfect day.‖
―How much land did you say this place had?‖
―A hundred acres! And a lake! I tell you, it‘s an absolute steal!‖
―Okay.‖ The realtor‘s heavy-handed enthusiasm was already giving her a headache.
―It surely lives up to its name. Elysian Fields!‖
Mo tried not to laugh. ―I‘m sure it does.‖
―A hundred acres of paradise.‖
―Can‘t wait to see it,‖ Mo said. ―How long will it take me to get there from Chattanooga?‖
―Leave now,‖ Victoria said, repeating the directions she‘d mailed Mo.
Chapter Three
Bebe
The words ―Elysian Fields‖ were barely visible on the rotting wooden sign on the highway, and
the roadway was cracked and fallen to rubble and dried grass beneath patches of snow. It was colder here
than in Chattanooga. There were tire tracks on the road, but not many. Clearly this place had seen no heavy
traffic in some time.
Within a minute, though, the highway had disappeared behind big stands of pines, and the land
dipped into a valley where the winter‘s frost lay undisturbed. The road led toward a horseshoe cliff in the
distance, its sheer inner face shaded with dun-colored clay and topped with snow that hung off the edge like
thick frosting. The sheer drama of the cliff was breathtaking, the sort of God‘s Country sight that would be
expected in the wild landscapes of Wyoming or New Mexico, but distinctly, gloriously out of place in the
rolling hills of middle Tennessee.
Mo was so preoccupied with the view as she approached that she almost drove off the road and
into a lake that spread across the entire base of the horseshoe.
She stopped the car and got out. From here, the sound of traffic was almost nonexistent. The lake
was covered with thin sheet ice, giving the surface a glassy sheen. Surrounding it, sticking out of a rim of
snow, were clusters of dry reeds, brown now and broken. Beyond them, fruit trees, gnarled with age and
too overgrown to produce, stood out starkly against the sky.
It was an Andrew Wyeth landscape, stark and dichromatic, conveying a weird sort of compelling
loneliness. Mo shivered with something that felt like recognition.
A hundred acres, she thought. It sounded too good to be true. But then, land was plentiful in this
area. And cheap. A good bargain, for those who could tolerate its limitations: Cold winters, no malls or
theaters, limited access to highways. From everything she‘d heard, nobody lived in Beltsville if they didn‘t
have to, unless they‘d been born there. Or were hiding out. Or unless, like Mo, they were done living and
needed a place to mark time.
―Hello,‖ she called out tentatively. Her voice echoed off the cliff and came back to her. ―Hello!‖
she called louder. ―Hello!‖ came the response. ―Hello!‖ She kept it up until the entire valley rang with the
sounds of her greeting, the words overlapping one another in a reverberating cannon. ―Hello! I‘m Mo!‖ she
extemporized. ―I‘m Mo, hello! I‘m Mo! I‘m Mo!‖
She laughed. It had been a long time since she‘d heard her name. Desmond had dubbed her Mo.
They were her initials, Mari Owens, M.O. ―Sweet Mo,‖ he had called her. Lovely Mo among the lilacs,
Mo of the fairy feet, who had danced among the grove of great oaks at Cedarwood, their dream house. Mo,
my beloved, my beauty, Mo who has won my heart forever...
She realized that her face was covered with tears. ―I‘m Mo!‖ came the last faint echo from the
cliff.
―Oh, shut up,‖ she muttered as she pulled a crumpled tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.
As she turned around to go back to her car, she nearly collided with a woman. Mo gasped, the
tissue flying out of her hands.
―Howdy,‖ the woman said. She was a gigantic creature, an Amazon at least six feet tall, wearing a
red and black checked jacket. She might have looked like a lumberjack from the back, but her face was
very pretty, with clear blue eyes, a huge, mobile mouth, and dark blonde hair cut straight just below her
earlobes that fell in a way that Katherine Davis would have sacrificed all ten fingers and at least one
abdominal organ to achieve. ―I guess you‘re Mo.‖
Mo felt herself turning bright red. ―You pick things up fast.‖
The woman laughed. She was fairly young, Mo guessed, thirty five on the outside, although the
corners of her eyes fanned out into deep laugh lines tanned from much time spent outdoors. ―I‘m Bebe
Butler,‖ she said, extending a gloveless, callused hand. ―This place is for sale, you know.‖
―Yes, I...‖ Mo blinked. ―Are you...Oh, I‘m so sorry. I was told the owner had left. I should have
called.‖
―Relax,‖ Bebe said. ―The owners are long gone.‖
―Then who... where...‖ She looked around. There seemed to be no place for this woman to have
come from.
Bebe was already walking away. She turned around with a mischievous smile and jerked her
head. ―C‘mon, Miss Mo.‖
―Where are we going?‖ Mo shouted, running to keep up with Bebe‘s enormous stride.
―Going? Going?‖ echoed her voice. They both laughed.
―My place,‖ Bebe said. She pointed to a stand of pines.
Mo frowned, uncomprehending, until they got close enough to see between the trees, which had
obviously been planted to create a barrier. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what the artfully
arranged pines were shielding.
Sprawled across a couple of acres, separated by rubble and the remains of long-ago gardens, were
a half dozen rusted-out mobile homes, ranging in condition from dilapidated to unthinkable.
―Trailers,‖ Mo whispered, stunned. ―Elysian Fields is a trailer park.‖
―Please,‖ Bebe said sardonically. ―We prefer the term ‗mobile estates‘.‖
―You... how...‖ Mo‘s voice died away. In front of one of the trailers was a big firepit surrounded
by good-sized rocks. Another was lit with electric light. The rest appeared to be abandoned.
Mo‘s mind was racing. Well of course, she thought. An abandoned trailer park, gone to ruin. It
would take a lot of money to restore the place, which was probably why the asking price was so low. The
realtor, Victoria Whatsis of the phony Southern Belle lingo, was pulling a li‘l ole fast one on the Yankee
fool with more money than brains.
But wait a minute, she argued with herself. Did it even matter that it used to be a commercial
property? Mo had no plans to go into the Mobile Estate business. What would it cost to have these things
towed away? Whatever it was, it probably wouldn‘t be prohibitive. But what about … Did this woman
live here?
―Want to meet Elsie?‖ Bebe asked, inclining her head toward the nearest trailer, its windows
glowing yellow with electric light.
―How many people live here?‖ Mo asked, incredulous.
Bebe shrugged. ―A few. We‘re squatters.‖
Mo smiled wanly. ―I see.‖ Great, she thought. I‘ll have to throw them all out, start eviction
proceedings against this nice person and whoever lived in the rusty old shell Bebe was approaching ... ―On
second thought, it might be better not to disturb—‖
The door opened swiftly, with a metallic squeal. ―What the hell do you want?‖ snarled a hunched
old woman. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, and her eyes were nearly shut, squinting
against the smoke that streamed around her face and the tight gray curls of her hair. In her hands was a cast
iron skillet which she was evidently planning to use as a weapon.
―Er...‖
―Put away the frying pan, Elsie,‖ Bebe said. ―This is Mo. She‘s thinking about buying the place.‖
―Well, no, not really,‖ Mo demurred.
―What the hell kind of name is Mo?‖ Elsie demanded in her whiskey voice. ―That‘s a man‘s
name. She one of your homo friends?‖ She poked the cigarette toward Mo. ―Now I don‘t interfere with
nobody, but I‘m not about to live around a bunch of lesbos.‖
Mo blinked, too shocked to speak.
―Like this one.‖ She jutted her chin toward Bebe. ―No shame. Runs nekked.‖
Bebe laughed. ―Just trying to put a little excitement in your life, Elsie.‖
Elsie snorted in Mo‘s direction. ―I‘ve been married thirty eight years. Believe me, I don‘t get
nothing out of seeing some big fat girl nekked as a jay bird, cooking hot dogs. I seen you, don‘t deny it.‖
She was poking with her cigarette again.
―Hey, if you got it, flaunt it, I say.‖
―And you‘re a lesbo, too. Don‘t think I don‘t know what you and that other one are up to in
there.‖ The smoke of her cigarette drew a line toward the next trailer.
―Oh, yeah? How would you know what ‗lesbos‘ do unless you‘ve done it yourself?‖
Elsie‘s eyes opened wide. A long ash fell off her cigarette. ―I never!‖
―Well, come over some time. I‘ll give you a free sample.‖
Sputtering, Elsie retreated into her doorway, negotiating the frying pan through the narrow
opening with some difficulty, then slammed the door with a screech.
Bebe grinned. ―That‘s Elsie.‖
Mo looked over at the trailer, then at Bebe, and smiled. ―Quite the salty dog,‖ she said.
―You should meet her husband.‖ Bebe rolled her eyes. ―Even worse. They used to be caterers or
something. You‘d know what a scream that was if you ever tasted their food. Even the smell of it makes
you gag.‖ She covered her mouth. ―I shouldn‘t say mean things, though. Old Neil‘s in a nursing home.
He‘ll probably be checking out before long.‖ She pointed a thumb heavenward.
Mo was looking through the bare branches of trees and hedges. Each lot would be quite private
in the warm weather, when things were in leaf. Elysian Fields had probably once been a nice place to live.
―Do you know why the owners left?‖ Mo asked.
Bebe opened her hands. ―I guess they just retired. You can ask Ned. He‘s their son. He still
lives here.‖
―Where?‖
―This way.‖ Bebe walked her through narrow dirt pathways along the ghostly abandoned shells.
―Why are all these still here?‖ Mo asked. ―I mean, aren‘t mobile homes supposed to be ...
mobile?‖
―Most of the tenants did move. Without an owner, there‘s no trash collection, and nobody to mow
the grass, although Ned tries to keep up. ‖
―Is Ned the official owner, then?‖ Mo asked, puzzled.
―No. His parents... Well, maybe you‘d better ask him about that. Anyway, the reason these units
are still here is because most of them just aren‘t worth taking the trouble to move them.‖ She went over to
one and kicked at a spot so rusted that it resembled brown lace. It crumbled. ―Plus, they‘re on concrete
blocks, and the wheels are long gone. Not to mention the fact that we all received sheriff‘s notices to get
out.‖
―Or else...‖ Mo prodded.
―Or else nothing. This is Beltsville.‖ She gave a dismissive wave. ―The only one who‘s really a
pain is this obnoxious realtor who‘s handling the sale, but we try to vanish when she comes around, and
leave her to Elsie.‖ She grinned. ―Not that you‘d have a problem with us if you bought the place. We‘d be
glad to pay you the rentals on our lots. The problem is, the witch—that‘s what we call Victoria—won‘t
accept rent from us. She won‘t accept anything less than total evacuation.‖
―Actually, I had planned to live alone,‖ Mo said quietly.
Bebe was silent for a moment. ―That‘s understandable.‖ She shrugged. ―Anyway, Ned‘s trailer is
up there, past the cabin. That‘s where his parents lived.‖
Mo‘s breath caught. Bebe was pointing to a stone cottage, no more than six rooms, with a wide
porch and a maple tree on the front lawn. It was a house straight out of a fairy tale. Mo wouldn‘t have been
surprised if the Seven Dwarfs came marching out singing Heigh Ho. Some distance away, removed from
both the house and the rest of the community, was a simple trailer, a white 12 X 60‘ model that seemed to
be in better condition than most of the others.
―Ned likes to keep to himself,‖ Bebe said. ―I don‘t see his car, though.‖ She laughed. ―He
probably saw you coming and took off.‖
―That‘s all right. Thanks for the tour.‖ They turned back.
―Divorce?‖ Bebe wasn‘t looking at her.
―What?‖ Mo felt stricken, as if the D-word had just fallen out of the sky to wound her without
warning. ―Oh. Yes. That‘s why I‘m looking for a place to live.‖
―A hundred acres is a lot.‖
―I know. I wasn‘t thinking of it seriously, anyway. I‘d never even heard about this place until
Victoria – the, er, witch, as you know her – emailed me through my…‖ She was about to say my publisher,
but thought better of it. There was no point in letting the world in on the failure of her career. ―…my
work.‖
―Maybe it‘s serendipity,‖ Bebe said, stopping to tie her boot. ―You know, finding the perfect
thing without—‖
―Bebe…‖ Mo said, unaware that she had spoken. The sight of the woman tying her shoe had
brought an image to mind, an image as famous as that of Princess Di in her translucent skirt, or of Jackie
Kennedy crawling onto the trunk of the Presidential limo. ―You said your last name was Butler?‖
Bebe looked up from her task. She was not smiling. ―That‘s right,‖ she said.
In the late Eighties, at least ten million people had seen the photo of Beryl Butler tying the laces of
her white boots on the day of her ―wedding‖ to a Spanish Contessa on the steps of St. Patrick‘s Cathedral.
She had been perhaps the most celebrated model in the world at that time, the beautiful cowgirl
who had come out of the hardscrabble dirt of Wyoming to set the New York fashion world on its ear.
During an era when the icons of beauty were wraithlike heroine addicts with dark circles under their eyes
and shoulders so thin that the movement of their bones was visible when they walked, Beryl Butler—often
referred to as B.B., as if she were the new Bardot—gave off an aura of fresh air and wholesome sexiness.
Suddenly, the covers of Vogue and Elle were practically bursting out of their supermarket racks
with color and vibrancy. Gone was the little black dress, the wan smile, the cynical slouch of the worldweary. Beryl Butler made America young again.
Before long, she began to appear not only in fashion magazines, but in the ―People‖ section of
Newsweek and the ―Newsmakers‖ section of Time (Fashion superstar Beryl Butler surprised even the
worldly audience of the Women’s Wear Designer Awards by kissing swimsuit designer Diane Abbots on the
mouth in full view of paparazzi), in all the tabloids (B.B.’s Lesbian Heartbreak) and, of course, in People
(Supermodel Beryl Butler, above, protests John Cardinal Connor’s condemnation of gays by dancing nude
on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Members of the group were arrested minutes after this photo was
taken. The irrepressible B.B. responded to hecklers by vowing to marry on those same steps. ―Anyone in
particular?‖ a journalist queried. ―A juicy girl with big breasts and hot thighs.‖ Colonel Sanders
couldn’t have said it better.)
During those heady years, with AIDS known as the Gay Plague, homosexuality—though certainly
not unknown in the fashion industry—nevertheless seemed a bizarre lifestyle for one of the world‘s great
beauties to espouse. The Christian Coalition attacked her with a vengeance. She became Anita Bryant in
reverse, the target of every right-wing group in the country. For a time, obscene ―Beryl Butler‖ jokes
became as popular as lawyer jokes.
Bebe—though she had not yet taken that name—fought back by behaving more outrageously than
ever, doing a photo shoot for GQ in drag, and an interview in The Advocate, in which she admitted to an
affair with the daughter of a prominent U.S. senator, as well as with an extremely well-closeted movie star.
Both parties vehemently denied her story, but the damage had been done. By the time of her stunt marriage
to the Spanish Contessa—who had turned out to be Eurotrash of the worst sort—Beryl Butler was very
nearly too hot to handle. The fringe society of the fashion world still loved her, but she had burned so
many bridges that the general public no longer saw her as the beautiful country girl who made women want
to look like her, but as a freak whose endorsement of a line of clothes or cosmetics was the kiss of death.
As she and the Contessa left for Europe on a year-long honeymoon, the press was already beginning to
forget her, and their interest never rekindled.
But she went out with a bang. The last famous photo of her, the one in which she was tying her
white boot on the steps of St. Patricks‘, was the most celebrated shot of Beryl‘s brief but incandescent
career. Wearing a fairy tale gown by Oscar de la Renta and a confection of white tulle that circled, veiled,
and crowned her like a cloud, she was the epitome of feminine beauty, undoubtedly the most lovely bride
of the year. And then she bent down, with the polished, fluid grace that only a professional model could
muster and, with a wink at all the cameras she knew were trained on her, flung up the seventeen-yard hem
to reveal a pair of white combat boots. Behind her, in the same photo, was the Contessa, a perfect
counterpart to Beryl‘s gossamer whiteness, in a gown of black lace with a mantilla poised over a high comb
in her hair and blood-red fingernails, and the officiating pastor, a bull dyke wearing an exact replica of a
Cardinal‘s vestments, including a mitre, and smoking a cigar.
―It was your shoe... the way you tied it,‖ Mo waffled. ―You are Beryl Butler the model, aren‘t
you?‖
―No, ma‘am,‖ Bebe answered, standing up to display her full six foot, 220-pound frame. ―I‘m
Bebe Butler, massage therapist. Do I look like a model?‖
Mo smiled. There was no doubt in her mind that Bebe and Beryl Butler were the same, despite the
lack of glamorous trappings and a degree of weight gain that would have driven Katherine Davis to suicide.
But it was clear that the woman did not wish to be reminded of the past, and Mari Owens knew exactly
how that felt.
―My mistake,‖ she said softly. Bebe smiled back at her.
As they neared Bebe‘s trailer, another woman approached them at a trot. She was quite pretty,
too, in what Mo considered a twitchy sort of way.
―She‘s coming!‖ the woman shrieked. ―The witch. I saw her through my binoculars.‖
Bebe exhaled noisily. ―Damn.‖
―Should we leave?‖
―No. Mo here will keep her civilized.‖
The woman crossed her arms and glared at Mo, whom she clearly considered to be an intruder.
―This is my roommate, Cynthia,‖ Bebe said. The woman maintained her haughty stance, as if she
were posing for a photograph. Cynthia possessed the sort of fragile, intense beauty of a neurotic aristocrat.
Mo wondered briefly what their stories were, the hundred-pound-overweight ex-model and her febrile
companion, but her attention was pulled toward a cloud of exhaust spreading over the crest of a hill. In a
moment, a red convertible appeared on the horizon, barreling at breakneck speed down the dirt road toward
them.
Seemingly unaffected by the sight, Bebe continued her introductions. ―Cynthia, this is Mo Owens,
the writer. She‘s thinking of buying the park.‖
Mo was stunned. ―You know who I am?‖ she asked.
―I‘ve read every book in the Goddess trilogy,‖ Bebe said.
―So have I!‖ Cynthia shrilled, suddenly warming to the newcomer. ―A picture of you and your
husband is in the back of all your books.‖
Mo smiled wanly, feeling both flattered—it was not often that people recognized her—and
ashamed, because the not-very-recent photograph used on the book jackets showed Mo hovering over
Desmond‘s shoulder as if she were his secretary. ―I was a lot younger when that was taken,‖ she said,
immediately regretting the blatant insecurity of the remark.
―We‘ve all been younger,‖ Bebe said graciously. ―And dumber.‖ She gave Mo a nudge.
A wash of warmth flooded over Mo. Bebe was someone who understood things without being told
all the details.
―Can‘t she read?‖ Cynthia shrieked. ―There are ‗Slow‘ signs posted all over the place.‖ As the
car approached, shimmers of heat emanated from the vehicle in the cold air, as if its occupant were red hot.
―Victoria Tanner, in the flesh,‖ Bebe said. ―Are you surprised at how she looks?‖
―Not really,‖ Mo said.
Victoria was blonde, thin, and tall, with a kind of nervous energy born of untrammeled hostility.
As she wheeled her red Sebring convertible around the parking lot with a screech of brakes and a cascade
of flying gravel, her steely eyes took in, with obvious distaste, the sight of the two women with Mo.
―I can‘t stand her,‖ Cynthia said through clenched teeth.
―What are you doing here?‖ Victoria demanded as she exited the car. They were her first words,
uttered immediately after the swift silence of the Sebring‘s engine and the slam of its door. Each word had
been punctuated with a period at the end of it. What. Are. You. Doing. Here.
Mo was overcome with a sensation of dismay. This was not a scene she wanted to be a part of.
She had answered the realtor‘s email on impulse, a decision she was now regretting. She watched in
horrified fascination as Victoria, dressed in a ridiculously flouncy red and white polka-dot blouse and blue
cigarette pants, strode slowly toward Bebe and Cynthia, her movements like a stalking predator. Slowly
her hands found her hips; the corners of her mouth turned downward while her chin jutted up and out. She
was absolutely aware of how intimidating she appeared, despite her Stepford Wife costume.
―I asked you a question,‖ she said with quiet venom.
―And I‘m giving you an answer,‖ Bebe said, saluting Victoria with her middle finger.
―We‘ll see how smart your mouth is when the police get here.‖ She walked quickly back to her
car and grabbed a cell phone.
―Victoria, please,‖ Mo said.
―I‘m sorry you had to be subjected to this, Ms. Owens,‖ the realtor said, pronouncing the pronoun
Mizz. She took out a cellphone and stabbed at the numbers with her bright pink fingernails. ―These are
squatters.‖ It sounded as if she were repeating an obscenity in court.
―Get rid of the phone,‖ Mo snapped. She snatched it out of Victoria‘s hands and tossed it back
into her car. Victoria gaped at her. The two other women exchanged surprised but obviously delighted
glances. ―Forgive me,‖ Mo said, ―but this is just a preliminary viewing.‖ She smiled, trying to restore some
sense of civility to things, not the least of which was her own demeanor. She knew she shouldn‘t have been
so brusque, but the abrasive Ms. Tanner had been the crowning annoyance of an already annoying day, and
she had acted without thinking.
For a moment Victoria regarded her with narrowed eyes that could have frozen a mosquito in midflight. Mo returned her gaze, but with the sort of hangdog expression of one forced to fight against one‘s
will. Like most women, Mo disliked overt antagonism, although she seemed to cause it often enough.
Nevertheless, Victoria understood that Mo was a prospective buyer for Elysian Fields. The switch
in her demeanor was instantaneous: her eyes widened, the cords in her neck submerged, and her mouth
loosened and turned upward in a practiced imitation of a smile. ―Well, dear, if you buy this property, you‘ll
be more than welcome to keep anyone you want on it, but there are laws against this sort of thing.‖ She
was using her velvety voice, the one she usually reserved for telephone conversations.
―Let‘s just let it go.‖ Mo started to walk away, close enough to Victoria to indicate that she was
taking her along. She turned back to wave at Bebe. ―Thanks,‖ she said, wanting to keep their goodbyes
short so that Victoria could be removed from the scene with a minimum of fuss. Bebe understood. She
nodded, her mobile mouth broadening into a smile.
―Oppressor!‖ Cynthia shouted. Mo winced. Victoria took a deep breath before turning around,
ready for combat.
―Shut up,‖ Bebe said, pushing Cynthia away with one big hand.
―We shouldn‘t stand for this,‖ Cynthia hissed.
―Do you want me to punch you out?‖ Bebe whispered back, dragging her away toward the
trailers.
Victoria reached into her car for the cell phone. ―I‘m sorry, Ms. Owens, but the police really have
to know about this,‖ she said. Her pink fingernails, catching the sun like shiny new weapons, prepared to
strike.
So Mo came up with the only thing she could think of to diffuse the situation: ―Call me Mo,‖ she
said. ―And let‘s talk money.‖
Chapter Four
Mo
Synopsis: Araiama, High Priestess of the ancient sea goddess Mari, does not heed an oracle’s
warning that invaders will attack her temple. She is a rational woman, a woman of power, and during
these times, the High Priestess of a temple the size of Araiama’s does not bow to any man. She goes
instead to speak with the leader of the tribe of male warriors who have invaded the Goddess’ lands.
He demands that she abandon her temple and dismiss her acolytes. The time when women run the
world is past, the leader informs her. The religion she propagates is stupid and evil, and will be
eradicated, replaced by the male god of war whom the soldiers worship.
Araiama has the choice of capitulating to him or fighting. She decides to do neither. As servants
of the Goddess, she and the other priestesses will demonstrate that they mean no harm to the foreign
tribesmen.
But the invaders do not understand this gesture of goodwill. They arrive prepared for war, and
systematically slaughter every acolyte at the temple. Only Araiama herself, who is rendered unconscious
by a blow on the head early in the massacre, escapes death. She comes to after the temple has been razed
to the ground, and finds that all her women, even the young girls who were sent to her to study the ancient
holy ways, have been murdered.
These were the only people she knew in the world, her family, her daughters. She feels
responsible for their deaths. Had she told the others to flee or hide, she might have been the only one to
die. As it is, she believes that her survival is her punishment for a decision that cost the lives of those
dearest to her, a decision based on arrogance and the abuse of her power.
Although she is half mad with grief, she does not believe that the Goddess has punished her
adequately. To atone for her great sin, Araiama curses herself to a thousand powerless lives.
She lives out the rest of her present life as a wanderer, a beggar woman travelling from place to
place telling her story and confessing her shame in exchange for scraps of food.
The story—a prologue—begins with Araiama, covered by a threadbare cloak, begging to join the
communal fire of some ancient settlement. Chapter One opens with Araiama, at the height of her power,
invoking the Goddess.
Questions:
Where does Araiama’s story take place? Chaldea? The Chaldeans worshipped a sea goddess
named Mari. How do I find out about Chaldea? Early Ireland? The Basques? Central Europe? They
had a Mari goddess, too. Then again, I don’t have to use Mari. I just like it because it’s my name. It
could be any goddess.
Who are the invaders? Jews? Are we talking about King David, who wiped out a lot of the
goddess cults? Or St. Patrick—I could do something interesting with the snake idea. ―Snake‖ may be
a synonym for women’s cults, since the snake has always been associated with the Goddess. Did
anyone invade the Basques? Oh, the Spanish Inquisition. But that’s too late. That could be one of
Araiama’s subsequent powerless lives. A young woman who foolishly falls in love with one of the
Inquisitors, and then is condemned as a witch. Save this for later.
When does this all occur? Well, it’s got to be very early. If there ever really was a time when
women ran the world through religion, it would have been before men decided that land was valuable.
So we’re talking ultra-low population.
(Extra Space)
Mo rubbed her eyes. The beginning of a novel was always confusing, with a hundred ways to
proceed and the gnawing—although usually erroneous—feeling that only one of those ways will result in
the ―right‖ book.
The hodgepodge of activity from writing random scenes to sketching characters to writing down
dozens of pages of questions was what she called ―splashing‖. Splashing was her way of focusing, of
becoming familiar with and unafraid of her subject. She became acquainted with her characters by
splashing, as well as with the major events of the story.
The questions she wrote herself, however, were probably the most important element in the
procedure. They gave her an idea of the areas she would have to research, and how much of that research
would have to be done before she could complete the outline that would serve as her guide throughout the
year it would take to complete the novel.
The synopsis she had just written was the beginning of the beginning, the core of what her
eventual outline, and the book itself, would contain.
An outline, for Mo, meant a plot. A plot was a fairly static thing, like a landscape over which her
characters ran, although the characters and their reactions provided the entryway into that landscape. Mo
wrote outlines so that she would not lose track of the story.
But the life of the novel, its soul and breath, came from its characters. In the case of The 1000
Lives of Araiama Mari, most of the life of the book arose out of one central, pivotal, essential protagonist:
Araiama was the book. It was her story, the biography of a fictional character.
Mo had taken the name from a dream she‘d experienced several years before in which a snake
spoke her true name, Araiama, to her. She had awoken from the dream spelling: AR, AI, AM, A. Or A, RA,
IA, MA. Either way, the insertion of the letter A after every other letter entranced her.
Was it Indian? she thought now. She made a note:
Q—Is Araiama an Indian name? Oh, God, a million Hindu gods, all with names no one can
pronounce. Araiama Vishnamaranda. And who would be the invaders?
She read the question over to herself, then drew a line through it. Making Araiama Indian would
involve a shitload of research into Hindu mythology. No thanks, she thought.
And then there was the first scene in Chapter One. She had already written it, didn‘t like it, and
was tempted to write it again before she went on. But Mo was too experienced to fall into that trap. ―Perfect
is the enemy of good,‖ Desmond used to say. Rewriting was a luxury to be reserved for after the hard work
of the first draft was finished.
Leave Chap 1, she wrote.
She looked out the window. It had snowed during the night, a deep snow. It would cost a hundred
dollars to have the long driveway plowed out, and she would still have to shovel out her car and the
walkway to her door.
Winter had always been a solitary time for Mo. With the exception of the first winter after they‘d
bought the place, when Mo had been pregnant and Desmond uncharacteristically protective of her, she had
spent most winters by herself at Cedarbrook while Desmond commuted into the city for his social fix and
disdaining the locals as cabbage-eating savages.
Desmond was a native New Yorker, raised on the upper east side of Manhattan, a product of
private schools and private colleges, and shared the insular view of his class that anything west of Zabar‘s
or south of Williamsburg was a primitive wasteland where people married their siblings and shot strangers.
He had moved only because an estate the size of Cedarbrook would have cost upwards of five million
dollars in Connecticut or the Hudson. Pennsylvania in the eightiees was a huge bargain, particularly for
people who didn‘t have to go to jobs every day. Also, Desmond, who had inherited his family‘s pedigreed
but by no means vast fortune at the age of twenty-three, had lost most of it on a series of terrible
investments, many of which involved needy friends and cocktail parties.
At any rate, by the time Mo, who was thirty-one years old at the time, and Desmond, who was
forty one, married, the family fortune had dwindled to nothing. The mystery novels which Desmond had
begun writing as a lark became his sole source of income.
Mo, on the other hand, had scrambled to become a writer, working at secretarial jobs in publishing
companies and literary agencies while writing how-to books, ghostwriting, and cranking out
―novelizations‖, novels based on movie scripts, before finally landing a job as an assistant editor in a major
New York publishing house.
She and Desmond had met, and they had married, and then the bestsellers had come along the way
children did with other couples. Together they produced big, erotic mysteries conceived by Desmond and
written by Mo.
It was what each of them did best. Desmond, the clever one, larger than life, the aristocrat beside
whom everyone wanted to be seated during dinner. And Mo, hardworking, rational, always able to finish
the project; Mo, who never spoke loudly enough, who could not dissemble, who always blurted out the
truth, even if it was to her disadvantage. A perfect literary couple. While Desmond was stomping through
the endless whistle stops of bookstores, warehouses, radio and local television programs—Oprah and The
Today Show generally passed on mystery writers—Mo plotted and researched, struggled through the
impossible first drafts, sailed triumphantly through the second and third versions, argued with editors, fired
agents and searched for new ones, and generally churned through the writing part of a writer‘s life. In time,
Desmond did not even bother to read the books his wife created, so involved was he in the more visible
aspects of their joint career.
Mo hadn‘t minded. By then Ben had been born, and Mo was far happier staying at home with the
baby and the latest book. This background toiling was, in fact, exactly what Mo wanted. She was not
comfortable as the center of attention. The applause which Desmond drank like mother‘s milk caused Mo
to perspire and feel nauseated. She far preferred to stay at Cedarbrook gathering armloads of peonies or
lilacs, or hiking with Ben into the woods to their favorite destination, a huge oak which they called the
wishing tree. The wishing tree sported a fat heart with the date 1939 carved inside it, with the initials ―W‖
and ―L‖ on either side, reminders of unknown lovers from a time long past. The carving was more than ten
feet off the ground, having grown along with the tree since its creation. One day Mo and Bed carved their
own heart into the wishing tree, a heart bearing Ben‘s name.
(Extra Space)
Leave Chap 1, she had written. Why? She couldn‘t remember. It was so hard to concentrate in
winter.
She should have cleared out more of the outbuildings during the summer months. If she‘d had
those months to live over, she would have. It had been foolish of her to spend the time as she had… doing
what, exactly? Screaming. Walking from room to room in the house she had Desmond had dubbed Moldy
Manor, after a children‘s book she had read aloud a thousand times. Once, long ago…
Screaming in rage, in hopeless outrage, cursing Desmond, cursing herself, cursing God. What the
hell good did any of it do? She‘d just wasted a lot of time and mild weather. Now she‘d have to clear out
the garage wearing mukluks and mittens.
Cedarbrook actually had three separate garages, but neither Mo nor Desmond had ever thought of
using any of them to store cars. One had become a gym, another a workshop for Desmond, complete with
sawhorses and a wall of unused power tools. The workshop had been one of Desmond‘s momentary
infatuations with country living. He would build things, he had announced with the larger-than-life
enthusiasm that made his ideas, no matter how harebrained they might be, so irresistible.
The third garage had been converted into a cottage for Desmond‘s grandmother, a salty
nonogenarian who had lived with them, chain smoking and downing Sloe Gin Fizzes as if they were Diet
Cokes for the ten years between her husband‘s death and her own. The cottage where she lived – there had
been a falling out between herself and her socialite daughter-in-law, Desmond‘s mother, who would not
dream of living anywhere but in Manhattan -- had been painted and redecorated in a French provincial
motif, ―suitable for a Couple, or for use as a charming guest house,‖ according to the realtor‘s pretentious
brochure.
There was a fourth outbuilding as well, a playhouse on a hill surrounded by what had once been a
bright blue picket fence. Desmond had had it built for Ben when he was small. It was still filled with boxes
containing the stuff of his childhood—the Ninja Turtle costume Ben wore night and day for a year, a Zorro
hat, plastic helmets that turned him into a medieval knight, dozens of soft rubber swords. There was also a
grotesquely large machine gun with flashing lights that produced a number of ear-splitting sounds—a fifth
birthday gift from Desmond, who inexplicably thought that Mo would enjoy seeing their child playing with
guns—and a male Cabbage Patch doll, which Mo bought as a countermeasure.Ben had loved the gun,
ignored the doll.
(Extra Space)
It was time to clear out the playhouse. Ben died of leukemia when he was six years old. He had
only attended first grade for twelve days when he was diagnosed.
Desmond stayed drunk every day for a year after the funeral. Mo floundered on all counts, but
mostly with her writing, which no longer held her attention for more than an hour at a time. Everything had
simply become unimportant to her. Her work, her marriage, her life: None of it seemed to matter. Even
when Desmond had begun to womanize in earnest, Mo could not bring herself to be fully distraught over
his dalliances. Anger would have been too much trouble.
In time, Desmond took to drinking away from Cedarbrook, seeking company more engaging than
his wife‘s comatose silence. A year went by, two, the arguments becoming indifferent, the justifications
unimportant. They hardly spoke with one another, not out of malice or fear or even indifference, but simply
because, after the pain of losing the most precious thing in their lives, there was nothing more to say.
Then came the announcement that a new agent had been found, not for Desmond and Mo Owens,
but for Desmond alone, a beautiful blonde, a New Yorker by way of southern California, who felt that
Desmond‘s real future lay in the film industry. He would henceforth be writing screenplays, Desmond
informed Mo.
And he would be moving out.
It was like a hammer blow in Mo‘s chest. Just for convenience‘ sake, of course, Desmond
explained in the smooth way he had that had always made Mo feel as if the biggest problem were no more
than a slight inconvenience, with the possibility of a fun little party along the way. But she knew that the
blonde agent was more than a convenience.
―Why not?‖ Mo had answered dully.
Desmond winced. ―Ben‘s gone,‖ he said, perhaps without meaning to. It was, after all, the true
explanation. Ben had gone, crawled out of their lives through a little hole in the universe, and everything
else that had mattered to either of them slipped out after him.
―Yes, gone,‖ Mo said. ―And now you, too.‖
Don‘t be silly, he had said, this wasn‘t going to be anything really out of the ordinary. They‘d
probably be spending more time together than ever, it was just that he had to concentrate for a while on the
new direction his career would be taking, blah, blah... The truthful moment had passed. Desmond was in
celebrity mode now, dissembling, smiling, self-consciously charming.
Blah, blah...
Mo had stopped listening. It would all take time, she knew. It would be civilized and punctuated
with humor, like everything Desmond did, but the separation would be total.
She saw him three times during the next year, twice the year after that.
During the third year of their separation, Mo finally completed a novel she had begun the year
before Desmond‘s decision to leave her. Four years for one book.
The story was dark and almost grossly bloody. The light touch which had been the trademark of
the Owens‘ romantic mysteries was utterly missing. Seven thousand copies of the book, rather than the
usual half million, were printed, and that, their editor explained irately, was only because the Owenses had
a multi-book contract which their publisher was legally bound to honor. Otherwise, this linear, unfocused,
overly emotional novel would never have seen the light of day.
Fans wrote to express their disappointment over the horrific direction the Owenses had taken with
―their‖ work. They were no longer invited to speak at writers‘ conferences. Desmond‘s fun-filled tours
were cancelled.
Through it all, Desmond himself was happily oblivious. With the help of his new muse, he was
cranking out screenplays at nearly the speed formerly applied to his mysteries. He made the extremely
pleasant discovery that the film industry, unlike publishing, was rolling in money. A writer with sufficient
connections could make a very good living selling not screenplays, themselves only 110 pages long, but
treatments of screenplays. Treatments were short condensations of a story, which movie people far
preferred because they were easier to read than actual screenplays or, heaven forbid, novels. To his delight,
he discovered that some producers would pay for a condensation of the condensation. One page had the
potential of earning several thousand dollars, and since Desmond Owens had never loved writing so much
as having written, this arrangement suited him perfectly.
And then there was the absolute best scenario possible: A number of companies throughout the
globe were actually looking for ways to lose money in order to offset excessive yearly profits at tax time.
Since everyone knew that the best way to lose a lot of money, besides taking drugs, was to invest in a
movie, his agent (whose name was Toni, making it easy for Mo to refer to her as Phoni, or Baloni) arranged
for Desmond to dump all of his screenplays, treatments, and synopses which had originally been optioned
and eventually rejected, into companies looking for tax writeoffs.
It was a miracle of efficiency. Nothing was wasted. Each one-page synopsis of a treatment of a
screenplay was used, paid for, recycled, and paid for again. Desmond made so much money that, had it not
been for the continuing needs of his cocktail-circuit friends, he might even have made up his family
fortune. As it was, he and Toni became very au courant in the East Coast literary scene. They lived on
Central Park West, kept a small villa in Abruzzi, Italy, for the ski season, and usually summered in Las
Vegas as a concession to Desmond‘s appetite for gambling.
Desmond‘s divorce from Mo occurred strategically between the Failed Books Period and the Era
of Obscenely Lucrative Ersatz Screenplays, both a part of the larger Post-Ben Era. Mo emerged from the
split with Cedarbrook, a prescription for Xanax, and little more.
(Extra Space)
It was nine o‘clock in the morning. The gray sky was as bright as it was going to get. It was
leaden, oppressive, the clouds hanging over the lawn like a dirty mattress. Not so long ago, Mo
remembered, the driveway would have already be churned up by the tracks from Ben‘s sled and footprints
from Desmond‘s mother, who would be walking up the driveway to borrow butter for one of her inedible
cakes and to complain that Mo had permitted Desmond‘s hair to grow too long. The groundskeeper and his
crew would be chugging up with a plow and brushes for the boxwood hedges, which only grew an inch a
year and could not tolerate the weight of wet snow for long. Inside, the phone would be ringing every five
minutes, and Desmond would be shouting that he never got a moment‘s peace, even though all the calls
were for him, and he was always delighted once he started talking. And all the while he would be trying to
put on a pair of boots, announcing that he was going to walk in the woods and enjoy the bracing winter air,
an activity which Mo could not remember ever actually occurring. And then she would make breakfast,
and all of them would stuff their faces while shouting about the state of the world or the meaning of life or
the incursion of women into the field of mystery writing.
The driveway now was pristine with fallen snow. Mo opened the window. Outside the air was
silent, with that stillness that comes with deep snowfall. She remembered once seeing Ben sitting in such a
snow, still and wondering. When she asked him if something was the matter, he had answered in a
brokenhearted whisper, ―It‘s the last snow.‖
Desmond had finally found solace in the moneyed urban life of Manhattan chic in which he had
grown up, but Mo… Mo realized that she had gotten lost a long time ago, and had never found her way
home. Her friends told her, sometimes gently, sometimes cruelly, that she was depressed, that she was
lonely, that she needed therapy, or a support group, or a subscription to a dating club. They almost all
agreed that staying alone in Moldy Manor was a bad idea.
She closed the window and rubbed her arms. They were right. It was time to leave; she was ready.
But where would she go? Once she walked down that long, snowy expanse of untroubled road, would there
be any path that did not lead back to her own despair?
The phone rang, scaring her. How different from those busy, long-ago mornings, she thought.
Back then, the calls had never been for her. Now they all were. Whoever was on the other end of this line,
even if it was a telephone solicitor who pronounced her name wrong, was calling Mo Owens, not Desmond
Owens‘ wife.
―Mo, Victoria Tanner,‖ the flat voice announced. ―I‘ve got good news.‖
―Yes?‖ Mo asked, faintly annoyed.
―Elysian Fields. The price has come down another fifteen thousand dollars.‖
She didn‘t answer. After she‘d left Tennessee, the whole idea of moving away seemed unreal.
Yes, of course, she realized, she should, she must. But that was all academic. This was where she belonged,
here, at Cedarbrook.
―I kid you not. The owners just don‘t want to think about it anymore. It‘s going as is, though.
Whatever condition the house is in, it‘s going to stay that way till you fix it.‖
―But the people who live there...‖
―Not a problem,‖ Victoria said. ―The sheriff will evict them all in one swoop. I‘ll get the papers
ready, you‘ll sign them, and so long, trailer trash. You may have to get someone to haul away the junk, but
that‘s not going to be a big number.‖
Mo‘s mind was racing too fast for her to speak.
―Anyway, it‘s something for you to think about. If you‘re looking for a lot of land, you‘re not
going to find a better deal anywhere east of Ohio or north of the Carolinas. Then again, I can find you a
nice house in Chattanooga, if that‘s –‖
―No,‖ Mo said, drifting. ―No… That is, I have to sell my house first.‖
―Of course. But do understand that at this price, the property may not last long.‖
Mo said goodbye, then nearly threw down the phone. It was a bother, she thought hotly, another
hassle, another thing to take up her time…
The phone rang again. ―What!‖ she answered, sounding hysterical.
―Mo, are you all right?‖ It was Pat Andrews, the listing agent for Cedarwood.
―Oh, yes. I‘m sorry. I just got some news. It‘s nothing.‖
―Well, I‘ve got some news, too, but I think you‘re going to like mine. The buyers have met your
price.‖
―They have?‖
―They want to move in within sixty days.‖ Pat laughed. ―I told them I‘d do what I could.‖
Silence.
―So how about it, Mo? Should we break out the champagne?‖
Mo inhaled sharply, realizing that she hadn‘t been breathing.
―Mo?‖
―Great,‖ Mo said, scanning the walls, her eyes stinging. ―That‘ll be…‖ Oh, Ben, oh, Desmond,
how much of you will I leave behind? How much of me? ―…fine,‖ she finished in a whisper.
Chapter Five
Victoria
Victoria Tanner was fully aware of the source of her problem: It was that she had not been born
rich.
Everything else sprang from that one tragic quirk of fate. If she could have lounged for four years
in some Ivy League college—she‘d had the grades—instead of having to work her butt off starting the day
after her high school graduation, Victoria would probably have married a doctor or lawyer. (She‘d had the
looks, too, as anyone who had gone to school with her would have to admit.) Victoria would have spent the
next fifteen years arranging flowers and hosting ladies‘ luncheons. She would have been on the committee
for the St. Luke‘s Ball, the social event of the season. She would have been accepted into the Junior League
as a matter of course. She would have been known by name in all the boutiques in town since she was a
teenager, and in the Better Dresses department in each of the area‘s three department stores.
She might have had Katherine Davis‘ life.
Katherine, whose inclusion into SOTA, the Society for the Arts, was automatic, while Victoria‘s
membership had to be voted on. Katherine, who had never worked a day in her life.
She tore open the envelope in her hands with a vicious efficiency and examined the check inside.
She‘d already calculated the six percent she‘d be getting as both listing and buyer‘s agent on the Marcozzi
trailer park property.
The check was considerable, the biggest single commission of her year, although still nowhere
near what she deserved. That eyesore had been on the market for more than two years. Victoria was the
third realtor to take it on.
The sellers, the Marcozzis, had fired the others when they‘d suggested lowering the price, but
she‘d convinced them not once, but three times. Persuading people to lower their expectations required the
right balance between flattery (It’s a beautiful property – anyone with an imagination would love to have it)
and bullying (Look, the buyer knows what she’s getting into here. You’ve got to give her some incentive).
But the real evidence of her brilliance lay in finding the buyer. That was the art.
She‘d known from the beginning that no one local would touch the place, so she‘d gone afield,
into the realms of celebrity. Movie stars were always buying ranches in places like Idaho and Utah. Why
not Tennessee? Of course, the abandoned trailers definitely lessened the curb appeal factor in Elysian
Fields, so Victoria didn‘t set her sights on A-list celebrities, the ones who showed up on T-Zone and
Entertainment Tonight. Instead, she kept files on race-car drivers, second-string professional athletes,
character actors, musicians – people who might want a second home in a remote part of the country.
Writers were especially interesting to her. They could live anywhere, enjoyed privacy, and usually didn‘t
have an army of lawyers conducting their business for them.
She found Desmond Owens‘ picture in an issue of Women’s Wear Daily. He was at some
European heiress‘ wedding in Ibiza, standing next to a cupcake in a Vera Wang cocktail dress. The
cupcake‘s name was Toni something, ostensibly Owens‘ agent, but clearly more than that.
Victoria was very familiar with the scene: Successful but aging man fooling himself with a
twentysomething bimbo cum business professional. Probably married. Maybe he‘d be in the market for a
hideaway in the Tennessee hills.
She googled him. After a lot of PR fluff, it came out that he‘d written a bunch of books with his
ex-wife Mo Owens. So he wasn‘t married. Neither was the ex-wife who, after more googling, appeared to
be on the skids. Big two-million-dollar house for sale, dead kid, failed book, no movie deals, ex-husband in
Ibiza with gorgeous Toni the so-called agent.
Victoria composed a careful email and sent it to Mo‘s publisher:
… a beautiful property which may be suitable for an independent artist of quiet tastes…
It was worth a shot. And it worked. That was why Victoria Tanner was the number one realtor in
four counties.
―Hey, big bucks,‖ her daughter said behind her. Victoria quickly folded the check in half. ―How
much is it?‖
―None of your business.‖
―I need an iPod.‖
―And I need a vacation.‖
The girl sighed, her hand on her hip. ―So let me guess which one we‘ll be getting.‖
―Neither. I can‘t take the time,‖ Victoria answered distractedly, dropping the check into her
pocketbook.
―Oh. She‘s busy. Big news.‖
―That‘s enough, Elizabeth. You should cultivate a better personality.‖
The girl shrugged. ―Unfortunately, this is the one I was born with.‖ She opened the refrigerator
door and emerged with a carton of orange juice, which she upended into her mouth.
―Don‘t be stupid. You aren‘t born with… Put that down!‖ Victoria lunged at her. The juice
splashed onto the floor. Elizabeth bounced out of the way. She finished the carton, then tossed it overhand
into the trash.
―Nothing but net!‖
Victoria turned on the radio.
―I‘m singing a solo in Concert Chorus,‖ Elizabeth said.
Victoria held up her hand for silence. Her favorite show was on.
―Today on Talk of the Town, we have Police Chief Ray Lontz here to talk about Beltsville’s
solution to a problem facing law enforcement agencies around the country, and that’s money, isn’t that
right, Chief?‖
Hearty male laughter.
―Well, I guess it’s everybody’s problem, but since we’ve gone to part-time officers, we’ve had
some good results…‖
Money, Victoria thought. That‘s what it all came down to – who could buy what they needed, and
who couldn‘t. Her eyes slid toward the check in her pocketbook.
Katherine Davis had never had to worry about money, of course. She was married to an executive.
She lived in a beautiful house in the best part of Chattanooga. She‘d been to college – a conservatory, she‘d
said. Her kids were both in college. She‘d probably had a credit card since she was fifteen years old.
Victoria, on the other hand, had had to scramble for every dollar she ever made. She had not
married an executive, but an exercise instructor at the YMCA whose capacity for alcohol had been the envy
of his peers. After four, count ‗em, four, dates with Bill Petrovsky, all of which consisted of dinner at
Perkins‘ Family Restaurant followed by several hours at the Tally Ho Lounge, where Bill apparently was as
familiar a fixture as the barstools, Victoria found herself pregnant.
That was, she now believed, the single most devastating blow in her life. To have come from a
working class background—to have had to admit to the judges in the Junior Miss competition in high
school that her father worked in the mill as a crane operator (no wonder she hadn‘t won, she lamented
later), to have taken a job as a receptionist in a real estate office while the girls in the clique which Victoria
had always tried to be a part of drove off to college in their new Ford Mustangs—was bad enough. But to
get pregnant to a YMCA employee was simply proof that there was no God. Even the memory of those
four evenings of sweaty, slippery, grunting, panting, shout-out-loud sex with Bill‘s magnificent body were
not worth the colossal price she had been forced to pay.
In the years that followed, she asked herself repeatedly why she had not arranged for an abortion.
She‘d had the money, a nice little savings account which she had opened for the purpose of obtaining her
realtor‘s license. Perhaps that was it. The money had been earmarked for real estate school; to use it for
something as paltry as an abortion might have struck the single-minded Victoria as a dangerous
postponement of her plans. Or maybe the prospect of getting married, even if it was to Bill Petrovsky, had
its attractions. Married women got taken more seriously in business, she believed. It gave them an air of
respectability.
Besides, Victoria had never enjoyed dating. To her, the slow exploration of another human being
was a pure waste of time, particularly since most human beings were hardly worth knowing. Oh, some
were, of course. If she‘d had the opportunity to date the really important men in town, that would have been
a different story. But the sons of the most prominent families had all gone off to college, to date and
eventually marry the moneyed girls around whom they had grown up.
There were other rich men in the area, of course, but they were all married already. In most of
southern Tennessee, eligible bachelors were treated as if they were afflicted with an illness that required
immediate treatment. If, once married, they became for some reason unmarried, then they made a point of
remarrying quickly and discreetly, with as little lag time as possible.
For a while Victoria had tried to find these elusive, briefly unmarried men during their fleeting
periods of singleness. She sleuthed them out, read between the lines in the society pages, listened to all the
gossip that passed through the real estate office where she typed and filed the realtors‘ papers. Some of
those realtors were wealthy women themselves, bored socialites who sought to raise their self-esteem by
earning their own clothes money.
Victoria listened particularly to what they said. And sometimes, when it became clear to her that
the bored-at-home realtor in the expensive designer suit was perhaps bored because her husband was rarely
home with her, Victoria sought out the husband herself.
But the stalking of the rich was paying few dividends. Before long Victoria discovered that, while
rich men gladly accepted the generous gift of her body when it was offered to them, they rarely
reciprocated with anything beyond an occasional box of drugstore chocolates. They did not propose
marriage to her; indeed, not a single one of her wealthy but secret lovers had even taken her out to dinner.
One particularly unsatisfying romance had driven Victoria to compute the cost of the chocolates
and the meals of delivered Chinese food to her apartment against the hours she had devoted to persuading
her lover‘s guilty little member to perform the act of procreation. She was left with the stunning realization
that, had she been in fact the prostitute that her paramour was treating her like, she would have earned a
mind-bending four cents per hour.
That put an end to this phase of Victoria‘s love life. After her dismaying calculations, she realized
that once she earned her realtor‘s license, men like the ones on whom she was currently wasting her time
would be her clients.
No, she decided, it would not do to negotiate a two or three million dollar contract with someone
who knew the color of her pubic hair. Besides, Victoria liked sex too much to throw it away on men who
were too old, complacent, unadventurous, and tame to appreciate her formidable sexual talents.
For this was where she truly shone. There was little accounting for why she had taken to sex so
easily and completely, but she had. Ever since her first encounter with Tommy Eckstein, the cutest boy on
the varsity football team, she had known that her interest in matters of the flesh went deep. There was
nothing she found frightening or distasteful, no act too bizarre or revolting to attempt, no invisible line
separating propriety from fun. It was all fun.
But some men were, naturally, more fun than others. And Bill Petrovsky had been the most fun of
them all.
Not that Victoria would ever admit that to him. He was, after all, sorely lacking in just about every
other quality Victoria felt was necessary in a husband: He was not rich, and had damn few prospects for
ever becoming rich. He had an embarrassing job. Although not exactly stupid, he was not terribly
intelligent, and possessed absolutely no talent for finance. For Bill, who paid for everything in cash, life
revolved around his rented apartment, his Pontiac Firebird, a diet consisting of TV dinners and hot dogs,
and the Tally Ho.
Still, there was something about him that went beyond his YMCA pecs and his rock-hard behind.
There was a sweetness to him that Victoria had never seen before. It was an alien quality, so useless that
she would have regarded it as detrimental or even dangerous had it occurred in herself, but maybe that was
why she found it so interesting.
Bill cried at weddings. He crossed himself over dead animals lying headless on the berms of
highways. He read his horoscope in the newspaper every day, beaming with delight at the good fortune it
promised. He always remembered Victoria‘s birthday, even after their divorce. And he adored children.
His response to Victoria‘s sullen announcement that she was pregnant was a joyous and
instantaneous proposal of marriage.
Victoria was taken aback. She had not thought through the possible repercussions of her news.
Mostly she had wanted to shock him as badly as she herself had been shocked by the revelation of her
condition. In the back of her mind had been a vague thought of demanding money for her pain and
suffering. Certainly that was what she would have done with any of the chocolate-wielding cheapskates she
had been seeing prior to her four encounters with Bill Petrovsky. But she had never entertained the idea that
he—that anyone—would actually be happy about the prospect of her giving birth.
Nevertheless, happy was what Bill appeared to be. And how he remained throughout their
wedding (at St. Ursula‘s, the second best Catholic church in town) and reception (at the Holiday Inn) and
honeymoon (Daytona Beach).
He had never really been unhappy, Victoria realized several years into their marriage, even after
Elizabeth had been born and Bill lost his job at the YMCA and became a part-time bartender at the Tally
Ho. He‘d only had more to drink. Bigger drinks, more often, as his hairline receded and his perfect
physique degenerated into a beer belly and his healthy natural odor turned sour and his teeth began to rot.
And after that, after he‘d been fired from the Tally Ho and worked at the strip club...
No, Victoria did not want to think about those years.
She‘d done what she could, through all of it, gotten her license and worked seven days a week
while her mother watched the baby, and sold more starters and fixer uppers than everyone else in the
company combined until she made so much money that she could write her own ticket.
That was when, quietly, discreetly, she got rid of Bill Petrovsky.
Her divorce was a non-event as far as Victoria was concerned. She had always used her maiden
name in business, anyway. Despite her lowly origins, ―Tanner‖ sounded more upscale and less ethnic than
―Petrovsky.‖ Tanner was listed in the membership of the Junior League; the Realtor of the Year Award had
been in the name of Tanner. Victoria Tanner got a new wardrobe, a new house, and a new nose. Mrs.
Petrovsky was no more.
Her daughter Elizabeth had retained her father‘s name, of course, but Victoria did not mind
placing a certain distance between the two of them, either. For one thing, it did not reflect particularly well
on her to have a sixteen-year-old daughter. In the right light, Victoria could still pass for a woman in her
mid twenties—well, early thirties, anyway -- an illusion she sought to maintain.
For another thing, Elizabeth had not turned out the way Victoria had hoped. Although the girl was
bright in a bookish sort of way, she seemed to have little sense of the characteristics that were important in
young girls. She laughed loudly. She made jokes about literature and classical music and other subjects that
branded Elizabeth squarely as a nerd. Her friends were nerds. Her clothes, no matter how lovely they had
been when Victoria bought them, somehow ended up rumpled and stained.
Worst of all, Elizabeth was fat.
She was not slightly overweight, or in need of toning, or even stocky: She was truly fat. ―Fat‖
would have been the first adjective Victoria would have used to describe Elizabeth if she had not been her
daughter. As it was, she referred instead to the girl‘s wavy blonde hair, which really was quite unusually
beautiful, although Victoria knew that it made no difference what a girl‘s hair looked like if her body was
hideous.
So Victoria preferred not to refer to Elizabeth at all. She rarely volunteered the information that
she even had a daughter. Since the two of them had few interests in common, they saw one another only
when necessary, or when circumstances threw them together.
Breakfast was such a time. It was not that Victoria and Elizabeth made a point of breakfasting
together, but merely that their schedules coincided most weekdays between 7:15 and 7:30 AM. Victoria
drank black coffee at the kitchen table dressed in full battle regalia—Liz Claiborne suit, gold jewelry,
exquisitely highlighted hair, muted-but-flattering makeup, Piaget watch, Jimmy Cho shoes—while
arranging her calendar for the day. She always performed this ritual twice, to ensure the exact sequence of
events and the exact makeup of her luncheon. If, as occurred once or twice a week, she decided to have a
physical encounter with some young man or other, she also noted the time and place of this on her daily
schedule, listed, naturally in a code known only to herself.
Elizabeth bounded down the stairs with crashing footfalls that made the teacups in the cupboards
rattle. Victoria hadn‘t been aware that she‘d even left the kitchen. The radio was still droning.
―Don‘t miss your bus,‖ she said.
―Plenty of time. I was just getting my music. I‘m singing a solo –‖
―Yes, you already told me.‖ She pointed a manicured nail at her daughter, who was foraging
through the refrigerator again. ―I thought you already had breakfast.‖
―That was just juice.‖ She extracted a colorful package from the freezer and placed its contents in
the microwave.
―What are you cooking, Elizabeth?‖ Victoria said, looking up from her list with irritation.
―Liz,‖ the girl said with exaggerated patience. ―My name‘s Liz.‖
―It is not,‖ Victoria countered.
Elizabeth—Liz—produced a great teenage sigh. ―Whatever.‖
―You didn‘t answer my question.‖
The microwave dinged. ―Which was?‖ She placed two steaming croissants on a plate and brought
them to the table along with a jar of strawberry jam.
―Croissants are hardly what I‘d call a balanced breakfast.‖
Elizabeth stuffed one into her mouth. ―Good, though,‖ she muttered.
Victoria set down her pencil. ―Did you see the size of that bite?‖
Elizabeth stood up hurriedly and took a carton of milk from the refrigerator. She guzzled its
contents, spilling a trail down the front of her blouse.
Victoria looked away pointedly. ―Where did you get them?‖ she asked as if she were demanding
that her daughter name the source of her drug stash.
―I bought them with my allowance,‖ Elizabeth said.
Victoria turned off the radio. ―Croissants,‖ she said, her voice scornful. ―You spent your
allowance on prepackaged frozen croissants.‖
Elizabeth tore off a corner of the second croissant, but her bravado had fled. She swallowed with
difficulty.
―Fat people‘s food,‖ Victoria said.
Elizabeth stood up from the table, picked up her bookbag, and left before the tears in her eyes
welled over.
Chapter Six
Liz
Barry Samuels and Todd Bowen mooed at her as she passed their seat on the schoolbus. Two
seats behind them her best friend Monica waited, smiling, pretending she hadn‘t heard the boys.
―Hey, girlfriend,‖ Liz said.
Monica took something out of the pocket of her parka. ―I made something for you.‖ She handed
Liz a knotted hemp bracelet.
Liz lowered her head. She was trying not to cry.
―It just took a minute,‖ Monica said. ―No big deal.‖
Liz brushed away the croissant crumbs on her chest. ―Thanks,‖ she said.
She really had the best friends in the world. They might not be the most popular kids in school, but
who wanted to be around those people, anyway? She and Monica, along with Ravi Rohatgi and Carla
Jollie and Brendan Shaw—the other members of the Night Riders, as they jokingly referred to their gang of
A-student misfits—liked to sit together at the mandatory pep rallies and make fun of the brain-dead
cheerleaders and football players and, above all, the girls on the school drill team whose contributions to
the games was to shake pom poms and display their butts.
There was strength in numbers. Before the Night Riders found one another, each of them was the
brunt of a lifetime of cruel jokes, Monica for her Mr. Magoo glasses, Carla because she was plain and shy
and square-shaped and wore a size 40 DD bra, Brendan because of his stammer and the kind of computer
geek humor that even Liz found nerdy, and Ravi because he was an Indian who had never assimilated into
American life.
Liz, who had always been loud and large, had been the driving force behind uniting the class
misfits into an informal group. She had not done this consciously, of course. If pressed, she would not have
admitted to being the prime mover among a group of social losers. But in fact, her organizational skills
were already impressive, and while this quality was dismissed among her peers, most of the teachers at
Liberty High had noticed that Liz Petrovsky had the makings of a leader.
She had single-handedly formed the school Glee Club, for example. Forrest McCormick, Liberty‘s
choral director, was not a strong-willed man. When he introduced the idea of a Glee Club as an
extracurricular activity, his suggestion had been greeted by moans and guffaws of derision. But once Liz
took the organizational ball and began to run with it, everything changed.
First, she arranged for the school to recognize Glee Club as an official form of Community
Service, which counted as a full credit toward graduation. She accomplished this by promising the local
hospital and all the area nursing homes that the Glee Club would sing in their dining halls for special events
and holidays.
She also brought up the idea of an annual Glee Club CD as a fundraiser, which would free
students from the humiliating door-to-door candy sales most of them had to endure. In place of the standard
black-and-white uniforms, she got a preliminary thumbs up from Troutman‘s, the best department store in
town, to provide clothing for the Glee Club members at a 40% discount in exchange for the members‘
wearing them during performances and a mention in the GC‘s concert programs, thus enticing the school‘s
prettiest (and therefore most popular) girls to participate.
And then there was the music. Once she persuaded Mr. McCormick to replace his selections,
including such snorers as ―Fairest Lord Jesus‖ and ―Smoke Gets In Your Eyes‖ with choral versions of
songs by Dido and Carlos Santana as well as show tunes and interesting world music, even some cool
students joined.
Although her efforts to promote Glee Club were mostly to help out Mr. McCormick, Liz
inadvertently provided herself with a showcase as well, because it was well known that no one could sing
like Lizzie the P.
She had sung major roles in every school and community musical production since her freshman
year. She was also the star soprano in Concert Chorus, the vocal equivalent of Orchestra or Band, as well
as her church choir, also directed by Mr. McCormick who was, for Liz, the most desirable man on earth.
When she looked at him, she did not see a five foot six inch male with gray hair and a nose that
had once been broken and permitted to heal unset. She did not see a high school teacher and choir director
whose two jobs netted less money than her grandfather made during his crane operating days in the mill.
She saw, as did Katherine Davis, a musical genius with a soul that soared above the mass of men like an
eagle flying over blind moles. She would have done anything for Forrest McCormick.
And Mr. McCormick, in return, was unstinting in his praise for Liz. At home, she might be a fat
girl eating fat girls‘ croissants, but when she opened her mouth to sing, Liz Petrovsky was Queen of the
World.
―Chorus first period,‖ Monica said, wiggling her eyebrows beneath her coke-bottle glasses.
―So?‖ Liz tossed her long blonde hair. Girls—on occasion, even popular girls—told her that they
wished they had her hair. It was nearly waist length, and hung over her shoulders in thick gold ringlets. It
shone with more hues than the greatest hair colorist in the world could achieve. One look at that hair, and
anyone could see that it was all real.
Unfortunately, boys didn‘t care about her hair. Or her magnificent voice, or her organizational
abilities, or her first-rate mind. They still mooed when she walked by.
―So I‘ve seen how you look at Mr. McCormick.‖
―Please,‖ Liz said, feeling her cheeks suddenly blaze. ―He‘s old enough to be my father.‖
Monica nodded sagely. ―Yes, you‘re right. Actually, I‘m glad to hear you say that, because...‖ Her
voice trailed off. She crossed her thin arms over her chest and looked out the window.
―Because what?‖
―Nothing. Gossip.‖
―Duh,‖ Liz said, poking Monica‘s arm with her finger. ―Like we don‘t ever gossip? Out with it.‖
―Look. Your finger‘s leaving a bruise on me.‖
―Then tell me before I do it again.‖
Monica laughed. ―Okay. It‘s just that I heard that he has a girlfriend.‖
Liz felt her heart sinking. Her one fantasy had been that Mr. McCormick, the only unmarried male
teacher in school, would remain single until she graduated.
―Who told you that?‖
―My mom. Well, she didn‘t exactly tell me. I overheard her talking to someone else.‖ She leaned
forward eagerly. ―I think it‘s the organist at his church.‖
―Mrs. Davis? No!‖ Every neuron in Liz‘s brain was screaming. ―But she‘s so old! She must be a
hundred!‖
―Mr. McCormick‘s old, too,‖ Monica said primly.
―Oh, it‘s different for men. My mother says that all the time. Men are still sexy when they‘re old.‖
―Is she pretty?‖ Monica asked. ―The church lady.‖
Liz stared at the floor in sullen concentration. ―She‘s thin,‖ she said. That, in itself, was an
admission of defeat. ―And stylish, in an old kind of way.‖ And, though Liz hated to admit it, really pretty
nice. ―She‘s a good organist.‖
―Guess what else she is?‖ Monica whispered. ―Married.‖
―She is?‖ Liz had been going to St. Peter‘s since she was two years old, and she had never seen
Mrs. Davis‘ husband. ―I guess I thought she was a widow or something.‖
―Her husband works in China. But he‘s coming back because he got fired. My mom‘s friend
works at Magnetica. It‘s really big news there, I guess.‖
―Why? What‘d he do to get fired?‖
Monica shrugged. ―I don‘t know, but it had to be pretty bad. He was the head of China.‖
Liz laughed. ―You make him sound like he was the emperor or something.‖ Suddenly she sucked
in a great whoosh of air. ―Wait a minute! If Mrs. Davis‘ husband is coming back, that leaves Mr.
McCormick free!‖
Monica made a face. ―I still don‘t think he‘d date you, Liz,‖ she reasoned. ―I think there‘s a rule
about it or something.‖
―I‘ll be graduating in two years.‖ Liz sat up erect and smoothed a strand of hair from her face.
―Maybe you‘d better clean up the milk stain on your shirt before he proposes,‖ Monica said.
Chapter Seven
Forrest
Ever since Katherine had told him the news about Richard Davis‘ impending return, the days had
come and gone in a blur of dread. Forrest could barely remember the events of the day that had just passed:
Three choruses, all bordering between bad and execrable, an uneaten tuna sandwich for lunch, a reprimand
from the principal about something or other, the realization around ten o‘clock that he was wearing only
one sock, and another at two o‘clock that the big toe of his sockless foot had developed a blister.
That no longer mattered. The bell had finally rung on this endless day, and he was racing toward
the Holiday Inn on Route 309.
It was funny how the momentous occasions of one‘s life just popped up, without preamble or
announcement. He had proposed to Katherine at least a hundred times during the past twelve years, and
though he had always hoped she would accept, it had never seemed really urgent that she do so. He knew
that they would still see one another. He even knew that Katherine loved him. And so after each unspoken
rejection, each time she changed the subject, or complained about a headache, or looked at her watch and
then announced that she had to go home because she had a hairdresser‘s appointment, he had not been
terribly disappointed.
But this time it mattered. Richard was coming back, Forrest wasn‘t leaving, and Katherine was
finally going to have to choose between them.
(Extra Space)
Forrest‘s rivalry with Richard had begun when the three of them were still in high school.
―Rivalry‖ hardly seemed like the right word, given the huge disparity between Richard Davis and Forrest
McCormick.
Richard was big and muscular and good looking, a halfback on the varsity team, a solid student,
and Junior Class President when Katherine started dating him. Forrest was a forgettable nonentity, an
academic failure who surprised everyone when he was awarded a full scholarship to Morris Music College
in Philadephia.
No one had even known that he studied music. He played no instrument, except for chords on the
piano, and he was not a particularly good singer, although he participated in Chorus under the direction of
the octogenarian Miss Mays, who‘d had no idea that young Forrest had even harbored an interest in music.
What he had not told her, or anyone, was that he had composed no less than one hundred twenty
pieces of music since he had first checked out a book on music theory from the public library. The pieces
were chorales, tone poems, songs, concertos, sonatas, fantasies, orchestral works, string quartets, a march
for brass, a woodwind sextet in which all six instruments were soprano saxophones, and two one-act
operas.
The admissions people at Morris were stunned at Forrest‘s prolific output, as well as his lack of
formal education, but the only praise he truly craved was from Katherine.
An accomplished pianist, Katherine had played ―Claire de Lune‖ for the first talent show of senior
year. Through her performance, Forrest had sat enraptured, the spittle in his mouth turned to dust, his heart
pounding, his crotch in an agony of prolonged tumescence. He had gone home and written three songs for
Katherine. In order to demonstrate his supreme regard for her, he wrote the lyrics for all three in Latin, and
replaced her name with ―Mary,‖ or ―Mary, Mother of God‖.
As a result, Katherine never knew that the songs were about her at all. When he asked her to
accompany him while he sang his compositions during the next school talent show, she played sensitively
and appreciatively, although with a vague sense of unease that Forrest stared at her with an obsessive
intensity the whole time he was singing about the Blessed Virgin.
Had she been able, somehow, to discern that Forrest was in fact pouring out his heart to her,
Katherine might have gone with Forrest to the senior prom instead of with Richard Davis. She might have
waited for Forrest to graduate from Morris Music College instead of waiting for Richard to graduate from
Ohio State. She might, very possibly, have married Forrest instead of Richard.
As for Forrest, who had bumbled his way out of the unforgettably lovely Katherine‘s life through
his singular inability to express himself in any mode other than pure music, he had made the unfortunate
but financially necessary choice to become an educator, teaching high school vocal music to teenagers with
whom he could communicate no better than he had with his peers when he himself had been a teenager.
His students regarded him as a sort of village idiot, forgetful, boring, and utterly lacking in
authority. Before the arrival of the remarkable Elizabeth Petrovsky, who was as psychologically powerful
as she was talented and who by some miracle had managed to bring her fellow choristers under control,
Concert Chorus had been a free-for-all nightmare of flying gum wrappers, radios, and cell phone
conversations.
But even then, Forrest had not regretted his decision to remain in Beltsville. He had no need for
fame or wealth. As far as he was concerned, he could compose just as well in southeastern Tennessee as he
could in New York or Los Angeles. He didn‘t even mind having to teach, except that he knew he was an
abysmal teacher.
In the end, though, even his unpopularity among the students of Liberty High School had not
mattered a whit, because he was near Katherine.
Then, three years after Katherine and Richard‘s Open House, nine years after their senior year,
two events occurred that changed both Forrest‘s and Katherine‘s lives forever: The first was Richard
Davis‘s transfer to China. The second was an offer made to Forrest by St. Peter‘s Episcopal Church to
direct its choir.
Although the job would not pay enough to enable Forrest to quit teaching school, it was
nevertheless a tremendous opportunity. In college, his concentration had been liturgical music, an area in
which even the most successful composers were virtually unknown. As Director of Music (his actual title)
at St. Peter‘s, Forrest would be able to showcase much of the music he had written, even if there would be
few in the church‘s small congregation to hear it.
He had been in place for five years when the church organist, a nurse in Beltsville Memorial
Hospital‘s Intensive Care unit, was promoted to Night Charge Nurse. After two weeks of coming to the
early service still in her bloodstained uniform, her eyes red-rimmed and bleary, she informed Forrest that
her notice had been fulfilled, and she would not be returning.
He panicked. No one was willing to play at an impoverished Episcopal church. It was hard enough
to get anyone even to attend the services, with the huge Baptist churches sprawling in every city and town
between Chattanooga and Nashville. And in the deep country, the rural areas buried in the hills, the
churches were singular, of Christian denominations unknown outside of their congregations, and
sometimes very strange. It would not do to search them for an organist.
He placed an ad in the local papers and begged the American Guild of Organists for help, then
waited. Occasionally he bribed the organists at Coopersburg Methodist and Grace Lutheran to call in sick
on Sundays. The rest of the time he struggled through the hymns himself.
He thought of Katherine Davis, of course; there had not been a day that he hadn‘t thought about
her. Forrest even kept Katherine‘s senior class portrait in a silver frame which he hid in the drawer of his
nightstand. He tried not to look at it every day, but on most days he failed. Sometimes, when he felt
particularly lonely, he kissed the photo, and then was overcome by the urge to masturbate, which invariably
filled him with feelings of shame and self-loathing.
And then she had appeared, like an angel, an apotheosis, a gift. The greatest gift he could have
imagined. He wept with joy when she left after their meeting. He walked around the block, hands in his
pockets, his feet nearly dancing. In the shower, he sang the entire tenor part in the Hallelujah Chorus from
Handel‘s Messiah.
Katherine had not only remembered him, but had actually seemed glad to see him. And she not
only still played the piano, but had taken a degree at Julliard in Organ Performance! On top of everything
else, she was familiar with the anthem he was planning to direct on the following Sunday.
And then there was the other matter, the information she had mentioned so briefly and casually
that Forrest had put it away in some reserve of his mind so that he could take it out later and inspect it,
examine it like some small and secret thing, turn it over, wonder about it, savor its nuance:
Richard was in China.
That was how she said it: ―Richard is in China.‖ She had swallowed, then added: ―Xi‘an.‖
At first, Forrest had thought that the statement somehow related to her playing the organ on
Sunday. ―I can give you a tape of the service,‖ he said, thinking that Richard would regret having to miss
hearing her play.
―Oh,‖ Katherine had said in a small voice. ―Thank you.‖
―When... when will he be back?‖ Forrest asked, his throat so dry that he nearly choked on the
words. A long silence had followed.
―August,‖ Katherine said softly.
It had been March.
―Oh,‖ Forrest had said.
―He‘ll be home for four days.‖
Forrest had blinked. The sides of his throat stuck together.
―Then he‘ll go back.‖
―To…‖ He had to clear his throat. ―To China?‖
Katherine closed her eyes. ―He‘s been living there for eight years,‖ she had said.
(Extra Space)
Katherine was waiting for him in the bar of the Holiday Inn. Forrest was shocked to see her there.
He had accepted her perennial lateness so much as a matter of course that it had never occurred to him that
Katherine would ever show up anywhere ahead of him. Even when they arrived at the same place at the
same time, as they often did, in separate cars, Katherine‘s entrance always lagged behind Forrest‘s by
several minutes. She needed time to put her driving glasses away in their case, to reapply her lipstick and
powder, to primp her hair, to check her clothing for loose hairs that may have fallen from her head during
the drive, to smooth her pantyhose, to make sure the lid on her pen was secure, to consume a small and
low-calorie breath mint, to determine that the catch on her necklace was not visible.
―Is something wrong?‖ he asked.
She looked at him accusingly, her eyes awash with momentarily unshed tears. ―Is something
wrong?‖ she repeated, incredulous.
―Well, besides the obvious.‖ It was turning out badly already, he knew. He was supposed to be the
one confronting Katherine, not the other way around.
―I‘m on my way to the airport,‖ Katherine said. ―To pick Richard up.‖
Forrest ordered a drink that was advertised on a festively decorated card on their table. It was
called a Mexicali Diablo. It came with an umbrella and a red chili pepper. He ordered it to delay saying
what he had come to say. Neither Katherine nor Forrest spoke while he waited for his Mexicali Diablo to
be concocted and delivered. Afterward, he stared at it in silence, occasionally running the side of his index
finger along the wet condensation of the glass.
Finally he took a deep breath and spoke. ―I think you should leave Richard,‖ he said.
Katherine swallowed. Her skin grew blotchy. Forrest looked over at her. She appeared suddenly
old, her fear seeming to constrict her very skin, which crinkled around her neck like white paper. She
lowered her eyes, took a drink of her Chardonnay spritzer, busied her hands with her cocktail napkin.
―I can‘t,‖ she said in a strangled voice. ―It wouldn‘t be fair to him. He‘s just been fired. If I...
especially now... Well, I just don‘t think...‖ She trailed off. Katherine rarely finished sentences concerning
Richard. It was as if thinking about her marital situation taxed her brain beyond its ability to produce
words.
―We‘ve used up all our time,‖ Forrest said.
Katherine knew exactly what he meant. He was saying that they had been illicit lovers long
enough.
―I want to marry you, Katherine,‖ he said, taking her hand in his.
She pulled it away.
―If you won‘t marry me, then live with me.‖
―Oh, we couldn‘t—‖
―Then leave Richard and live by yourself, so that I could come and spend the night with you.‖
Katherine‘s face turned bright red. ―Forrest!‖ she whispered.
―I don‘t care how embarrassed it makes you. I want to lie between your legs and know you‘re
mine, not something I‘ve stolen from another man.‖
―You know it‘s not like that—‖
―I want to wake up with you, to see you with cold cream on your face and drool dried on your
cheek. I want to kiss you and lick you and gallop you like a stallion before your eyes have opened—‖
She covered her face with her hands. ―Stop talking like that,‖ she squeaked, crimson with
embarrassment. ―Someone will hear.‖
―I don‘t care. It‘s what I want. And if you want those things, too, then at least tell him about me.‖
―Oh, Forrest.‖ Her hands moved away from her face to a praying position in front of her mouth.
―I wish I could.‖
―Tell him I exist. Tell yourself, Katherine.‖
―What are you saying?‖
―For twelve years you‘ve been coming to me like some secret addict getting high, feeling guilty as
sin every time you enjoyed yourself. And I‘m not just talking about sex, either. That time we drove to the
Jersey shore and walked along the beach. Remember? There were a lot of times like that.‖
―Mmm.‖ She smiled. ―How about when we went to that choral workshop in Minneapolis, and
spent all day at that huge mall?‖ She let him take her hand this time.
―It was wonderful,‖ he said gently. ―All our times together have been wonderful. ―But we‘ve
never gone away for a real vacation. I want to do that, Katherine. I want to spend a week in the Caribbean
with you. To go to Europe together. I want to have dinner with you in town, where everyone can see us.
What we‘ve had has been great, but I want more. Don‘t you?‖ He was looking deeply into her eyes, as if
he were searching for her in their depths, casting about with his will to pull her out, to bring her to him.
―Don‘t you?‖ he repeated.
(Extra Space)
The first time they made love had come as a complete surprise to both of them.
It had been months since Katherine had been hired to play the organ at St. Peter‘s. Because of their
work together, she and Forrest had reason to spend a great deal of time together, practicing, selecting
music, preparing special services. Since their work time was always during the evening -- Forrest taught
school during daytime hours -- it became quite usual for the two of them to eat dinner together or discuss
church matters over drinks at out-of-the-way places.
Neither of them would later remember just when those church matters ceased to occupy the entire
evening, when the talk would turn to Richard‘s absence, or Katherine‘s loneliness, or Forrest‘s ardor. But
they both remembered the exact moment on the Wednesday before Easter when, after the final triumphant
chords of Forrest‘s cantata, he had reached across the organ bench and lifted Katherine into his arms as
effortlessly as if he were picking up a kitten.
For a moment, her hands had remained hanging in front of her, their fingers outstretched as if they
had still been touching the keyboard. Then the depth of Forrest‘s embrace clutched her very soul with its
shocking passion. He kissed her with an open mouth, soft, his tongue gently questing. Forrest had only
kissed three women prior to Katherine, but he knew exactly what to do, because he knew exactly what he
wanted.
He had taken Katherine a thousand times in his thoughts. She had lain before him, wanton and
wide-legged, as he directed the Liberty High School Tenth Grade Chorus in a version of ―Simple Things‖.
As the Glee Club sang ―Amazing Grace,‖ Forrest had kept a mental image of himself running his teeth
along Katherine‘s erect nipple as she moaned in receptive pleasure. And almost every Sunday, while the
congregation of St, Peter‘s joined in the robust strains of ―Break Forth O Beauteous Heavn‘ly Light,‖ the
inner movie of Forrest‘s libido replayed a scene of arm-flinging, spring-squealing fornication.
In that wild and transcendent moment, all of Forrest‘s fantasies about Katherine Davis, all of his
impossible imaginings, began to come true.
They tumbled together onto the red carpet of the choir loft, nearly ripping one another‘s clothes in
their haste to consummate their yearning. To Forrest‘s amazement, Katherine was not at all reticent about
engaging in what was clearly sexual foreplay on the balcony of the sanctuary, directly opposite a carved
teakwood depiction of the Crucifixion.
On the contrary, she welcomed his advances, her breath hot and noisy, her lips wet. When he
unbuttoned her blouse and unfastened her brassiere, she thrust her small but succulent breasts at him, all the
while moaning softly in sweet invitation.
For that moment, too, and for every time that she participated in the act of love with Forrest during
the subsequent twelve years of their affair, Katherine managed to disregard her feelings of sinfulness. And
although she paid dearly for this momentary lack of conscience by suffering horrendous pangs of guilt
afterward and during almost every waking hour of her life, she was extremely grateful for this miracle of
denial while the demon of lust was upon her.
Who was to say why Forrest McCormick, who was neither conventionally handsome nor what
women would conventionally refer to as sexy, filled Katherine with a desire that made her blush with
shame, even while she willingly initiated acts that she would have considered perverted even with her own
husband? All she knew was that this man, who seemed to be made not of flesh but of music, ignited a fire
within her that burned away everything but her pure animal essence.
She needed not only to touch him, but also to taste him, to thrust him into her throat, to gyrate
upon him until he wept with joy, to entwine her legs around him and make him pleasure her with his lips
and his teeth and his tongue. She spread her legs for him, grunted her desire, pushed her hips up to meet
his, dug at his buttocks with her strong pianist‘s fingers, spoke the dark words into his ears, the words of
wanting, of needing his flesh inside her.
And he had responded manfully, taking her with gentle decisiveness, sailing along the river of her
desire as if it were a melody that he shaped and coaxed into an orchestral suite, instinctively expanding and
retreating in crescendo and diminuendo, taking the pace from a quivering, emotion-laden largo to a frantic
presto, hot and out of control, producing shrieks from the high brass and deep bass slides from the lolling
trombones. And then, when Katherine shuddered and her breath caught, ragged and raw in her throat
(where she had only moments before touched him so intimately), he caught the music in rallantando, as if
he were gathering clouds in his arms, making them dense and heavy and lingering, holding on to the fading
but lovely last chords of their lovemaking for a few beats more...
The final strain, the inaudible exhalation of satisfaction, came unexpectedly: Strings, high and
sweet, bringing the dawn. This is just the beginning, they sang. And Katherine, my true love, this is my
song for you.
(Extra Space)
―Oh, dear,‖ she breathed, raising her napkin to her lips, although she had not been eating or
drinking. She was remembering, Forrest knew, just as he remembered, the passion of their love.
That passion had never diminished. Nor had it failed to fill Katherine with guilt afterward. It had
occurred to Forrest, of course, that perhaps the reason their love had never lost its animal edge was because
of the forbidden nature of it. Perhaps if he grew accustomed to seeing Katherine vacuuming floors rather
than playing an instrument, he might not think of her so romantically. Likewise, if Katherine‘s normal view
of Forrest were of a man watching television and drinking a beer, she may not continue to experience her
frankly inexplicable sexual attraction toward him.
But he knew that was not the case. And if it were, he would not care.
―Marry me,‖ he whispered.
A fat tear fell from her eye before she could catch it with the napkin.
―You‘re just afraid,‖ Forrest said.
Katherine nodded.
―Of Richard?‖
She shrugged.
―Would he hurt you?‖
―No. Nothing like that.‖
―Then what are you afraid of?‖
―I don‘t know,‖ she said with some irritation.
―He‘ll handle it. Besides, the truth is always best. If I were in his position, I‘d rather know.‖
―I wouldn‘t,‖ Katherine said.
Forrest frowned. ―Really? You‘d rather not know?‖
―Oh, I don‘t know if I would or not. It‘s just so hard.‖
―What is?‖
―All of...‖ She gestured vaguely. ―Changing, I suppose. Changing is what‘s hard. It would be
such a...‖ Her eyes looked glassy. ―Such a big change...‖
There was a long silence. Finally Forrest spoke. ―Don‘t you love me, Katherine?‖
Another tear fell. ―Yes, I... I do. It‘s just that—‖
―No!‖ Forrest shouted, slamming his fist on the table with a sound that had the effect of an
explosion in the dimly lit, couples-only bar. His Mexicali Diablo slid in its own condensation into the
hurricane lamp in the center of the table and broke both the glass and the lamp. The paper umbrella
decoration fluttered upward momentarily, then landed on the pile of broken glass. Katherine gasped as a
cascade of alcohol and two red chili peppers came to rest on the lap of her Carolina Herrera pantsuit. Her
first reaction was to hold her yellow Hermes handbag out of the way.
―It‘s not just anything! You either love me enough to marry me, or you don‘t!‖
Katherine looked around in horror, her eyes wide as a deer‘s, at the silent, gawking crowd. Then,
trembling with embarrassment, freezing with nervous tension, she stood up and ran out of the room past
Forrest.
He lifted one hand, palm up, in an unconscious gesture of supplication. The moment seemed to
hang forever in the air, as if death had stretched its leathern wings over the room. Finally Forrest took some
money from his wallet and placed it on the table.
―I‘m sorry about the lamp,‖ he told the waiter.
On his way out, the bartender stopped him. ―Let me buy you a drink,‖ he said.
But Forrest only smiled and shook his head. ―It‘s okay,‖ he answered.
When he got home, he put on a 1953 recording of Jussi Bjorling singing ―Vesti la Giubba‖ from I
Pagliacci, and stared at the unopened drawer that held Katherine‘s high school photograph.
Part II
Eostar
March 21
The Vernal Equinox marks the arrival of spring. Symbolized by eggs, it is a time of hope, of
starting, of cleaning up and clearing out, of moving, finding a new center, making new rules. It is a prickly,
odd, unpredictable time of wind, wild rain, sudden heat, and a pervasive feeling of change in the air. After
the isolation of winter, Eostar brings the living out of their hiding places and allows them to see one
another in the sunlight. It is the time for the Gathering of the Clan.
Chapter Eight
Mo
In my youth I was called Snake Finder. Later I would take the name Araiama, which had been
given to me in a dream, and the name Mari, in honor of the Goddess whom I served as High Priestess;
but before my years of power, I was already an important member of the community. I was Snake
Finder, which meant that I would lead the People to water.
From birth, everyone had known I was special. I had been born with white hair, for one thing,
and eyes the color of doves, or an angry sea. I could not bear to look into the sun even for a moment,
but at night, my eyes were as keen as a hawk’s. It was with these eyes, the pale doors to my soul, that I
saw the long path my people would take to the peaceful lands of our new home.
(Extra Space)
―A migration,‖ Mo whispered, pushing up her glasses to frown at the computer screen. Her
character was talking to her. Araiama—that is, Snake Finder—was telling Mo that she had led her people to
a new place at some time during her youth. To the south, no doubt, away from the uninhabitable cold of the
Second Ice Age. ―Okay, okay.‖
She scooted on her wheeled office chair over to the one-volume encyclopedia she kept open on a
shelf. Mo‘s computer had an encyclopedia built into it, of course, much better than this cheap and out-ofdate reference, but she preferred this way, the turning of the pages, the smell of the words. So many tools of
her craft – books, note cards, folders – were no longer necessary; yet they were so much a part of her
routine that they took on an almost ritualistic significance.
Maybe it was just superstition, like a ball player‘s insistence on wearing a certain pair of
underwear for a big game. Stories were elusive. The spark that made them irresistible, that made a writer
need to write them, was ephemeral; it could vanish at any moment. When that happened, the work turned
sour, became drudgery.
That had happened to Mo too often in the past. Hanging onto a book she‘d become bored with was
like staying married to someone you were no longer very interested in. So she kept to her rituals as if they
were prayers for the fertility of her work. She thumbed through the encyclopedia.
―Ice Age, Ice Age...‖ It was important to pick up on the clues one‘s characters leave. So far,
Araiama had revealed that she had been respected in her community, that she had some sort of special
ability to locate water, which had to have been the most precious thing on earth to primitive peoples, and
that she was, of all things, a snake handler.
It always surprised Mo to see what came through her fingers onto the page. It was often so
different from what had been in her head. Until the sentences about Snake Finder had come out—appeared
out of nowhere, it seemed, onto her monitor— she had only pictured Araiama as a sixty-year old woman,
tall, slender, looking somewhat like the wicked stepmother in the animated Disney version of Cinderella.
Her hair would be gray, it would be worn in some kind of upsweep, with perhaps a headdress.
But she had written instead, with no intention to do so, about the priestess as a girl... a girl named
Snake Finder. She smiled at the thought. Writing fiction was like walking through an enchanted forest.
You could never plan too far ahead, because there was something interesting behind every tree. And you
never knew which things were important and which were just dross.
It took a moment for her to remember why her finger was pressed intently on the open
encyclopedia. ―Ice,‖ she read. Oh, yes, the Second Ice Age. Apparently it took place six million years ago.
Awfully distant. She didn‘t want to write a book about cavemen.
So maybe Snake Finder‘s tribe hadn‘t left because of the weather. Why else? Invaders. Okay,
invaders from the north. Mo had read somewhere about very early European settlements in the Balkans, by
the Black Sea, between 6500 and 5000 BCE, that were wiped out by northern invaders.
Maybe the tribe left to go to a better place, Mo thought. The goddess they worshipped was Mari,
whose following, from everything Mo had read, was strongest in the Basque region, between France and
Spain, along the coastline of the Bay of Biscay. The time frames didn‘t really jive—the Basque Mariworshippers probably rose to prominence millennia later – but hell, every area has indigenous people who
worship something. Besides, she told herself, this is a novel. If readers are looking for archaeological
exactitude, they should be reading National Geographic, not pop fiction.
Okay, so Snake Finder leads her people out of the Balkans and the constant threat of invasion by
northern tribesmen to a land – perhaps almost mythical, at first – where the goddess Mari rules all with
fairness and beauty…
That works. It is a trek of nearly a thousand miles, but Snake Finder‘s people will reach it safely.
They believe that their journey is blessed by Mari herself because it is a pilgrimage of faith. But this will
create a dangerous mindset in Araiama and the young women who serve her, because they will believe that
their faith renders them invulnerable. It will be this arrogance and sense of entitlement that will lead to
Araiama‘s unwillingness to negotiate with the barbarians (proto-Celts?) who eventually attack them in their
new home.
―Good,‖ Mo said aloud, scooting her chair around like a crab, back toward the computer. But
halfway across the room she stopped to look at the flaming logs in the fireplace. Then slowly, wonderingly,
she took in the whole of the room. While the internal landscape of her mind had remained fixed in
Araiama‘s world, it was a surprise to come back to reality. And such a different reality it was, so new that
sometimes Mo lost track of exactly where she was.
She was no longer in her house. Cedarbrook was gone. This was where she lived now, in this
stone cabin with three rooms instead of twenty-five, where her office was in the living room, flickering
with firelight.
The walls of the cabin, paneled fairly recently with some porous and flimsy veneer, were already
peeling away from the damp stone. In one corner, the dampness had escalated into wetness, with a more or
less permanent leak marked by a trail of moss from floor to ceiling. And the little fireplace was no more
than a cement box set into the stone of the chimney, without a mantel or screen. There had been five
fireplaces at Cedarbrook, all of them magnificent. The one in the music room, with a carved mantel of
yellow Costozza stone from Italy, had been big enough for several adults to stand inside.
Mo stood up and walked over to the sliding glass doors that looked onto the lake and turned off
the light. In the darkness, the calm, silent water lay before her like a secret, lit only by stars.
(Extra Space)
Through the window on the other side of the room twinkled the lights of the trailers. Mo sighed.
She had not yet spoken with Bebe, Cynthia, and Elsie about moving out, and was not looking forward to
the prospect.
Victoria Tanner had offered to take care of it all for her, but somehow it had not seemed right to
hand over the executioner‘s task. Perhaps it was because Mo knew Victoria would enjoy informing these
people that they were homeless. At any rate, she had bought the property, and so it was her responsibility.
She just needed a little time. A few days in which to get settled, she told herself.
And to work up the courage. Bebe had brought her a bouquet of daisies in one of Cynthia‘s
lumpen pots as a housewarming gift. Elsie Nolan, too, had come by with a cake. As she handed it to Mo,
the ash from her cigarette had fallen on it so that it resembled a mummified caterpillar. Elsie tried to blow it
off, but only managed to scatter ashes—as well as spittle—over the rest of the cake.
It was so exactly like something her mother-in-law would have done that Mo had involuntarily
sucked in her breath.
―So you take a knife and scrape off the frosting,‖ Elsie had said with a shrug. ―A cake‘s a cake.
You can put jam on it.‖
―Good idea,‖ Mo said, recovering. ―Thank you, Elsie.‖
―Don‘t think this means you can come around asking for favors.‖
―No, I won‘t do that,‖ Mo said.
―And I don‘t want you to invite me over anytime that lesbo‘s hanging around.‖
―I understand,‖ Mo said.
Suddenly she saw her own reflection in the dark glass of the window. She was grinning.
Why? She asked herself. She might have been living in Italy now. Or in Florida, or the
midwestern woods or the New England hills. She could have gone to the beautiful South Caroline Low
Country or the promised land of golden California. Instead, she had chosen to live out her life in the rural
South, where she was certain never to belong. She had no family here, no ties, not even any strong
friendships. Nothing but a handful of regrets.
But then, those would have followed her wherever she went.
Regrets, and a trailer park complete with squatters, a leak, and a stale, ash-covered cake.
(Extra Space)
The man‘s face, separated from her own only by the pane of glass in the window, seemed to have
materialized out of nothingness. Mo screamed.
The face opposite hers blanched in response, the eyes opening wide behind their rimless glasses,
the mouth falling into an O, a hand spreading over his chest. He backed up, dropped something on the
ground, stooped to pick it up, and then took off at a run.
―Wait, wait,‖ Mo called, opening the door. She knew that she had the habit of drifting away from
the sights in front of her face in favor of whatever was going on in her imagination.
The man—who was quite young, as Mo‘s brain was only now registering, as well as exceedingly
harmless looking—turned around with his hands in the air, as if he were afraid Mo would shoot him. With
the lights from Bebe‘s trailer behind him, he looked thin and small in his blue parka and faded jeans. The
wind blew his fine, dark hair so that it stood straight up. He was a little scarecrow of a man, Mo realized,
and more of a boy than a man, at that.
Mo walked over to him, her arms folded over her chest for warmth. ―I‘m sorry,‖ she said, trying
not to frighten him further. ―I was... daydreaming. Please, can we start over?‖ She extended her hand.
―I‘m Mari Owens. But people always call me Mo.‖
His hand was freezing. ―Ned Marcozzi,‖ he said. He was trying to meet her eyes, but not quite
succeeding. ―My parents used to own this place.‖
―Yes, of course,‖ Mo said. ―I‘ve been looking forward to meeting you, Ned. It‘s hard to find you
at home.‖ She had meant for the remark to seem harmlessly jocular, but Ned only looked frightened.
―I guess I‘ve been pretty busy,‖ he said. ―At work.‖
―Oh, where‘s that?‖
Ned swallowed. ―In town,‖ he said.
―Ah.‖
They stood in cold, awkward silence for a moment. ―Won‘t you come in?‖ Mo asked at last.
―No, I don‘t think... Well, maybe for a minute,‖ Ned said. ―I‘ve brought something...‖ He thrust
his hands inside the pockets of his parka.
―Unless it‘s a blanket, let‘s go inside first,‖ Mo urged. Inside she switched on the light, blinking
momentarily by the harshness of it.
―Oh, sure. Sorry. Sometimes...‖ His attention was riveted by the leak in the corner. He walked
over to it, touching the wall here and there, examining the ceiling. ―This corner‘s been a problem for a
while,‖ he said. ―They must have really let it go. I‘ll fix it for you if you‘d like.‖
―Really? That‘d be great,‖ Mo said.
―I just wish I‘d found out about this before it got so bad.‖ He smiled. ―I‘m sort of the park
handyman,‖ he explained. ―I‘ve been fixing the plumbing here since I was ten years old.‖ He smiled. ―But
since my parents left, mostly I‘ve just mowed the grass for the few of us who still live here.‖
Mo nodded. Something was not computing. The Marcozzis had not been present at the closing of
the property sale. They had been represented by a lawyer, who had made no mention of a son taking care of
Elysian Fields in their absence. And yet Ned‘s status as handyman had been confirmed both by Bebe and
by Ned himself. ―Um... How long have your parents been gone?‖ she asked.
―Around three years.‖
It occurred to Mo that it would take more than three yearss for such a thick buildup of moss to
develop on an inside wall, but quickly dismissed the thought. What did she know from moss, she thought.
Cedarbrook‘s walls had grown mold—they hadn‘t called it Moldy Manor for nothing—but not moss.
―Can I get you something to drink?‖ she offered.
―No, thanks. I just came to give you this.‖ From his pocket he extracted a wad of cash and handed
it to her. ―It‘s rent,‖ he said. ―From me, and from Bebe and Cynthia. There‘s some from Elsie, too,
although it isn‘t the full amount. I guess she hasn‘t had a lot of money since she had to put Niall—that‘s her
husband—into a nursing home. She‘s trying to get the rest of what she owes together, though.‖
Mo held her hands straight up, her fingers in the air. ―No, really, I can‘t...‖
―We want to do this, Mrs... Mo, you said?‖
She nodded, feeling foolish. ―Mo,‖ she repeated.
―Anyway, the realtor was always saying that we didn‘t have a right to live here because we didn‘t
pay rent. But there was no one to pay rent to. My parents just kind of... left. They didn‘t make provisions
for anyone to do anything. So it‘s been confusing.‖ He looked at the ground.
A hundred questions were leaping around Mo‘s mind. Why hadn‘t Ned been left in charge of
things? He was clearly of age, perhaps in his early thirties. Why had the Marcozzis taken off so abruptly,
without even making arrangements to collect rent from their tenants? How was it that Ned, apparently a
handy guy, had not seen a serious leak inside his parents‘ home? And why did Ned seem to know so little
about his own family?
―Look...‖ Mo said, sitting down. ―I want to be honest with you, Ned. I don‘t know if I want
anyone living here besides me. I already have a line of work. I‘m a writer. I don‘t really want to be in the
trailer park business.‖
She searched for something more to say, but there was really nothing to add. Ned‘s sensitive face,
with its aura of perpetual fear, seemed to fall even further.
―I‘m sorry. I meant to talk to each of you about this, but I‘ve been so busy moving in—‖
―I understand,‖ Ned said. He took a deep breath and stood up, as if the air were inflating him to
normal proportions. When he goes home, does he deflate again? Mo wondered. ―Still, I think you should
keep this.‖ He left the money on a coffee table. ―March is almost over. Could you give us until the end of
April to move?‖
Mo felt miserable. The man had grown up here, had apparently liked the place so much that he had
decided to stay even when his parents sold it, and now was being faced with eviction from his childhood
home.
If it had been his childhood home, Mo thought. It could well be that Ned Marcozzi didn‘t exist,
that this was simply one of the large army of demented persons floating around America‘s small towns,
inventing a past for himself that was perhaps more palatable than whatever reality had shaped the psyche of
this frightened, lonely boy. ―Would that be all right?‖ he asked softly.
Mo stared up, her face blank. ―What?‖ she said. She‘d been drifting again, going into novelist‘s
mode. And over nothing. The idea that Ned Marcozzi was anything other than what he claimed to be was
ridiculous, even though the thought had appeared in her mind in such an appealingly literary manner,
formed into a coherent paragraph, as it were, with mysterious overtones and just the slightest hint of doubt
that characterized the openings of good horror novels. ―Oh, of course.‖
―All right. I‘ll tell them,‖ Ned said, trying to be pleasant.
―No!‖ Oh, God, she thought. She hadn‘t wanted to open the can of worms so soon, but here it was.
―I mean, you shouldn‘t be the one to tell them. If I‘m going to be Simon Legree, I ought to at least work up
the nerve—‖
The wall of glass lit up as a vintage powder blue pickup truck van belching black smoke bumped
and creaked to a stop beside the house. A tremendous amount of noise issued from the vehicle. Some of it
was from the engine, a series of coughs, sputters, hisses and other moribund sounds. The rest was music
from the radio, country/western, with slide guitars and lyrics about a faithless whore of a wife.
―Wow,‖ Ned said softly. ―There isn‘t even a road there.‖
Wild random thoughts of killers—escaped convicts, perhaps—looking for a remote, rural
hideaway flashed into Mo‘s mind. All they would have to do would be to kill the inhabitants, dump the
bodies into the lake...
―Fuck!‖ The van‘s passenger door opened and a pair of red high heels vaulted out. They belonged
to a slender, petite woman with thick dark hair pinned up loosely by an ornament shaped like a swan. With
a screech, the pickup‘s hood shimmied open, releasing a cloud of effluvium. The red shoes kicked a tire.
―Fuck!‖
The wall of sound suddenly crashed into silence. From the driver‘s side emerged a man who sent
Mo‘s mind reeling back to the killers-on-the-loose scenario. He was tall and pot-bellied, with a long, loping
stride. The top of his head was almost completely bald, while the sides were draped with a curtain of long,
straight hair.
―Hey,‖ he shouted, smiling broadly. He had perhaps eight teeth, all of them tobacco-colored.
―Anybody home?‖
―Do you know how long we lived in that apartment?‖ the woman shouted.
―Jazzy, come on. These people here –‖
―Twenty three years! Twenty three fucking years!‖ In addition to the red stiletto heels, the woman
was wearing skin-tight velvet leggings and a form-fitting top that exposed her breasts nearly as far as the
nipples, despite the cold weather. In the moonlight, it was clear that she had sprinkled them with glitter.
―And over what!‖ She gestured wildly toward the back of the truck. It was piled high with furniture, trunks
and suitcases, dozens of green plastic garbage bags spilling out silk scarves, Indian choli, and gold shoes
willy-nilly. ―Over a stupid clock! Because you don‘t know how to act!‖
―Honey.‖ The man sounded truly penitent as he tried to put his arm around her. She slapped him
away. ―That was then, baby. This is now.‖
―Oh, shut up.‖
―Well, it‘s true. We already come eight hundred miles, and you‘re still bitching.‖
―Yeah, well, you‘re still stupid.‖
―That‘s not nice, Jazzy. Besides, I was making you a present. You got to give me credit for that.‖
―I‘m not giving you shit.‖
Inside the house, Ned backed away nervously. ―I guess I‘ll be going,‖ he said.
―No, you don‘t,‖ Mo protested. ―You‘re coming out with me.‖ She grabbed a jacket from the coat
rack.
―What if they‘re…‖
―I‘ll stand in front,‖ Mo offered.
(Extra Space)
The other park residents were already outside, although at a safe distance, when they went out to
greet her visitors.
The woman in the red heels stood in a spot where she was lit by the lights of the cabin on one side
and moonlight on the other. The effect, which may or may not have been accidental, was stunningly,
ethereally beautiful. She was petite and slender, except for the glittering breasts that jutted boldly from the
confines of her clothing. High on her neck she wore an elaborately beaded Victorian choker that looked as
if it would be suitable for a night at the opera.
Her age could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty, Mo thought admiringly,
although it was probably toward the upper end of the range. The woman‘s hands, heavily laden with large
and interesting rings, showed veins too prominent to belong to a young woman. But her hands were all that
betrayed her age. Her face, in this light, was that of a siren.
―How‘s it going?‖ the man mumbled, bobbing in greeting to the assembly.
Mo stepped forward. ―Can I help you?‖ she asked.
―We‘re the Kodalys,‖ he said affably. ―I‘m Andras, and this here‘s my wife, Jazzy.‖
―Jasmine,‖ the woman corrected, pointedly raising her nose. Mo had a momentary image of a
coyote baying at the moon.
―Aw, come on, honey, don‘t be mad. ―I told you I‘d find us a place to stay.‖
Mo sucked in her breath.
―Our truck‘s not doing too good,‖ he said, waving vaguely at the pickup. ―We been driving since
yesterday morning, from Miami.‖
There was a murmur from the residents. The man might as well have said they were from Pluto.
―We got kicked out of our apartment there,‖ he explained, his big eyes looking like those of a dog
left out in the rain.
―Because of you!‖ Jazzy rasped, her thick eyelashes shining with incipient tears. ―The landlord
told us we‘d be out if you didn‘t stop hammering all night long.‖
―But I can‘t help it, Jazzy.‖ He opened his arms in helpless submission. ―I‘m a carpenter.‖ He
turned to Mo. ―I was making her a birthday present.‖ He beamed. ―Guess how old she is.‖
Jazzy elbowed him in the solar plexus. Hard, from his response. ―Oof. Here, I‘ll show you.‖
―Don‘t take down that piece of shit,‖ Jazzy snapped.
Mo noticed the line of her mouth. A little thin, she thought, thinner than the lipline created by her
lipstick. Yes, the woman was definitely closer to forty.
Andras paid no attention to her as he loosened the netting of ropes securing their possessions to
the truck bed and lifted off a weird looking three dimensional object that appeared to be the naked torso of
a woman.
―It‘s a cuckoo clock,‖ he announced, displaying it in all directions as the onlookers moved in
closer.
Jazzy rolled her eyes.
―It does all kind of stuff.‖ Andras beamed as he set the clock against the side of the truck and
moved the hands to twelve o‘clock. It began to cuckoo. But in place of the usual bird, what came out of the
tiny doors at the top of the clock were a pair of red lips that opened and closed in a kissing motion.
There were flesh-colored disks at three and nine o‘clock. In the center of each was a long silver
tassle that twirled as the kissing lips emerged from the cuckoo‘s doors. But the piece de resistance
occurred at six o‘clock, when a second door opened at the bottom of the torso and a quivering pink vagina
(actually a set of lips identical to those commemorating the noon hour, set sidewise) popped out in time to
the cuckoo‘s chirp.
Ned‘s hand moved discreetly over his mouth. Bebe guffawed.
―I don‘t think that‘s very funny,‖ Cynthia hissed.
―If the rest of us have to pay, they do, too,‖ said Elsie Nolan from the shadows. She was leaning
against the house. All that was visible of her were her lips and nose, lit by the burning end of her cigarette.
―No, no,‖ Mo said. ―That is...‖ She swallowed. Ned was looking at her. ―This isn‘t a campground.
It‘s… er… well, a trailer park, except I don‘t know if… ― She swallowed as she faced the residents. ―I
don‘t know if I want to keep this place as a trailer park.‖
For a long moment there was a dead silence, finally broken by Andras. ―Well, you‘re not going to
get rid of them empty trailers by tomorrow, are you?‖
―No,‖ Mo said uncertainly.
―Well, then.‖ Andras spread his arms wide, grinning. ―That‘s all we need.‖
―You... You want to stay in one of the trailers?‖
―Why not?‖
Ned cleared his throat. ―They‘ve been abandoned for some time. There may be squirrels, or—‖
―Then I‘ll kick ‗em out!‖ Andras explained. ―I‘m bigger‘n them.‖ He grinned. ―Don‘t you worry,
Ma‘am.‖ He sauntered off toward the empty trailers.
Jazzy watched him go, then looked around at the denizens of Elysian Fields as if determining
whether or not she would deign to speak to them. Apparently they passed, because she turned to Mo and,
extending a graceful hand, said, ―Jasmine Kodaly,‖ as if her husband hadn‘t already introduced her. ―I‘m a
dancer.‖
―La di da,‖ Elsie commented.
―Er, Mo Owens,‖ Mo said, taking Jazzy‘s hand, although it seemed to be poised for a kiss rather
than a shake. She introduced the other residents.
―Hey, these aren‘t too bad,‖ Andras called from the trailers. ―I can have this one perfect in a
couple of weeks.‖
―If they‘re staying, they got to pay,‖ Elsie said. ―Otherwise, I‘m going to sue you.‖
―You can‘t sue her for that,‖ Cynthia said.
―Oh, yeah?‖ Elsie countered. ―How about you watch me?‖
―Shut up, Elsie,‖ Bebe said.
Mo looked at Jazzy. ―I I thought he said you‘d only be staying tonight.‖
Jazzy shrugged.
―Well, it really can‘t be for more than a few days,‖ she went on lamely. ―There are probably
insurance issues...‖
Jazzy looked at her nails.
―I, um, have an air mattress you can use.‖
Jazzy shrugged again. ―Tell him.‖ She gestured with her head toward Andras. As she did, her long
hair spilled out of its pin and over her shoulders. Maybe she was closer to twenty five after all, Mo thought.
Bebe approached, with Cynthia in her wake. ―Were you serious about sending us away?‖
―What?‖ Mo looked pained. Bebe had gone right to the core of the matter. ―Oh. I don‘t know. I
never planned on running a business. I just think it would be more than I can handle.‖
―But what about us?‖
―We aren‘t in your way,‖ Cynthia said defiantly.
―You took the rent money, didn‘t you?‖ Elsie badgered.
―Stop it,‖ Ned said. ―You know that money‘s for utilities, and to get somebody to plow the road
when it snows...‖
―That‘d be you,‖ Elsie continued belligerently. ―You shovelled the snow.‖
―That was a favor,‖ Ned said.
―Hey, don‘t do me no favors.‖ Elsie ground out her cigarette, leaving her in darkness.
―Fine,‖ Ned said. He walked away, nearly colliding with Andras.
―Everything looks shipshape,‖ Andras said. ―We can move right in.‖
―Andras, I don‘t think—‖
―Didn‘t you hear her? She doesn‘t want to keep the trailers,‖ Bebe said with a glance toward Mo.
―Hey, we‘ll pay you,‖ Andras said. ―Long as it‘s not too much.‖
―See? She‘s taking the money, all right,‖ Elsie said.
Jazzy jutted her chin toward Bebe ―Hey, are you—‖
―No,‖ Bebe said.
―You don‘t have to get snotty.‖
―Look who‘s being snotty,‖ Cynthia broke in with her shattered-glass voice.
Mo took a long, baleful look at all of the dissatisfied, cranky, obnoxious faces around her. Beyond
them, near where Ned was walking, a candle illuminated the window of a heretofore invisible mobile
home. Another trailer, she thought. I‘m the madam of a trailer park.
―What‘s the matter?‖ Andras asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the retreating figure of Ned
Marcozzi. ―Hey, who‘s that faggot?‖ he asked. ―I need to ask him something.‖
Mo went into the cabin, shut the door, and turned off the lights.
Chapter Nine
Araiama
Water calls to me. I can smell it, feel its arms reaching out to me like a mother.
The snakes lead me to water. I see their tracks in the leaves at my feet, pointing the way. They
welcome me, Snake Finder, their sister. Through me they have led my people out of the only world they
knew, into a cosmos of incredible diversity.
The old ones among us had been certain that we would fall off the edge of the world once we
had walked out of sight of Home. Home, that was the only word we had for the place where all of us
had lived all our lives, where the bones of all our ancestors from the beginning of time were buried.
Home was where the stories began, the place from which the stars and moon sprang, where the sun first
caught fire and flew away in pain.
But as we travelled – farther, I think, than anyone who had ever lived before us – we saw other
places where people lived, other worlds. They amazed us with their strange clothing, their unpalatable
food, their babbling languages. Worst of all were their goddesses.
Yes, even so. They prayed to demons, even though some of the outlanders knew the name of
Great Mari. A few could even point in the direction of her home, far, far to the west.
To the Land of the Dead, the old ones said, but I did not listen to them. My people had been
attacked again and again by invaders from the north, until we were too few in number to defend
ourselves against them any longer. It had been the decision of the elders to leave, as it had been their
decision to put the journey into my hands.
―There has been no one like you, Snake Finder, since the beginning,‖ the elders told me. ―We
recognize that you have been sent by Great Mari to help us in our time of need.‖
As I knew that it was the will of Mari that we should live near her, I did not hesitate to accept
the responsibility. Although I had only passed fifteen winters, I had known from my earliest childhood
that I was created differently from all others. My mother had died giving birth to me. When the midwife
left to summon the women to prepare her for burial, a snake – symbol of the Goddess, and lucky for all
women -- had come into my basket to suckle me. Upon her return, the midwife saw that the caul which
had been stretched over my head – itself a sign of the Sight – had been removed, and the snake which
had performed this sacred task lay coiled against my naked belly, a sign of my favor.
Later, when my hair grew in white and my eyes only saw plainly in moonlight, the medicine
woman who had taught me as a child gave me to the priestesses to raise. And then, just after my first
blood began to flow, the snake who had claimed me at the hour of my birth returned, coming into my bed
at night, whispering to me my true name:
Araiama.
I was consecrated as a priestess of Great Mari, and soon after, as High Priestess, taking the
name Araiama Mari as my own. I am not telling you this in order to boast. I was not elevated at so young
an age because I was held in special favor, or because I was beloved in a way the others were not, but
only because it was my destiny.
Destiny is a trickster. This is because all things, no matter how grotesque or horrifying, are
possible.
My destiny, I know now, was death. I led them all to death. In the end, I turned out to be not
savior, but executioner. Betrayer.
But all that was yet to come. During the years of our trek across the world, luck was with us. I
led us always to water, and near the water we encountered other peaceful communities. We shared the
meat of our sheep and goats, and talked to one another through universal signs and a few common
words. All of the strangers warned us about the yellow-haired barbarians whose land we would have to
pass through, and told us how to avoid them. Of course, we needed no such advice, as we were
traveling on a pilgrimage to the home of Great Mari, and all those we encountered knew at once that I
had been sent from the Otherworld. We knew that no harm would come to us, and none did.
Looking back, I see now how unusual that was. Perhaps Mari really was looking after us. But
perhaps it was just destiny, the wheel of fortune waiting to turn.
I knew when I found the water that we had reached our destination. It was a lagoon on what
would turn out to be a vast ocean. I smelled it from far away, the briny, primeval scent of the sea, the
birthplace of the gods, Mari’s own home.
There were no other people here. She had saved this perfect land for us.
I walked into the water, warm and sun-dappled, and stood beneath a waterfall, my arms
outstretched, my heart open. ―Come,‖ I whispered.
And then they were with me, legless and loving, the snakes come to welcome us.
The old ones fell to their knees. The young shrieked in delight. Mari was with us. She had
brought the snakes, my sisters, to welcome us.
The water poured upon me, washing me clean, bringing my sisters to me, while destiny waited
for the wheel to turn once more.
(Extra Space)
Very good, I wrote.
At least I thought I wrote it. The words seemed to have just appeared on the page. Well, that was
understandable, in a way. Writers learned to live without much praise. No publisher will ever say that your
book is any good, because they‘re afraid that you‘ll ask for more money. The same concept, with certain
permutations, held true for agents and editors. So you had to give yourself an occasional pat on the back,
whether it was deserved or not.
Thank you, I replied. Sometimes you play stupid games with yourself, too.
Yes. It captures the first worm of evil.
What? Words appearing magically on the page again. Okay, I thought, I‘ll play:
Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it evil. I’m just leading up to the origin of Araiama’s guilt. The whole
book’s about guilt, in a way, the guilt that keeps us prisoners of the past. Guilt, shame, atonement,
reclamation.
But the reason for the guilt is because she does something evil.
What are you talking about? She doesn’t know anything about evil. She’s completely innocent.
That’s how we all lose our innocence. By doing some act that eventually destroys our lives.
Too deep for me, dude. I say she’s innocent, and I say to hell with it. Who’s writing this book, anyway?
I laughed. That was Araiama arguing with me, of course. You know you‘re working too hard
when your characters start writing back to you.
When did you live? I typed.
There was no answer.
Which Mari was your Goddess?
I sighed. Alas, Araiama was not a reliable source for hard information.
Then it‘s going to be the Basque Mari, I decided. Should I set this story in the Copper Age? Early
Neolithic? Just how accurate did I have to be?
I logged onto the Internet, always a frightening prospect for someone for whom the IBM Selectric
had been the apex of modern electronics. Then I stretched in my chair, listening to my back crack as the
computer emitted a cheerful ding. Across the screen flashed something I had only seen once before: a
message announcing that someone was interrupting my work to chat with me.
I felt my pulse quicken with anger. This was a remnant of some visiting computer geek or other
who had decided to ―help‖ me to have ―fun‖ with my computer, even after I‘d explained that all I wanted
the thing for was word processing. If publishers still accepted typed hard copy, that would be what I‘d be
sending them. But they insisted on word files. Or pdf files, or Tiff files, or J pegs, or any number of other
incomprehensible things. In my opinion, computers – or rather, my fear of them – had cost me the better
part of ten years of work. I just wasn‘t comfortable with them. I didn‘t even want e-mail, which had been a
novelty at first, but had lost its luster long ago. And I certainly didn‘t want Instant Messenger. ―Let me
work!‖ I muttered, reaching for the ―no‖ response.
Then I noticed the name of the person sending the message. HENYA.
Chapter Ten
Henya
Henya?
Oh, yes, Mo recalled with a sigh. The woman at the church. Her name was Henrietta; Mo
remembered now. Their meeting had been an embarrassment, one of those things when the circumstance is
so awful that the best thing to do is to run away and hope that anyone who might have seen would forget.
It had occurred at the church. How odd, Mo thought, for someone like herself, who had never had
any leanings toward religion, to have sought out a church for comfort. Mo hadn‘t known that at the time.
She hadn‘t given any thought whatever to the brick church – very standard, with a steeple, a bell, and an
arched doorway – that had stood on Beltsville‘s Main Street for the past eighty years. It was an Episcopal
church, although its denomination had meant nothing to Mo, in the run-down part of town. The newer,
bigger Baptist churches sprawled along the highways on the way to Wal-Mart and the Mall. Mo hadn‘t
thought about them, either.
She had been in Beltsville for a few weeks. It was around Easter, she remembered, because the
hardware store where she had gone to buy a new stopper for the cabin‘s bathtub had been loaded with
displays of plastic baskets and plush bunnies.
She hadn‘t been thinking about Desmond at all at the time. Little by little since the divorce, she
had begun to suffer less acutely. The months before her move to Tennessee, when she knew for certain that
she was losing Cedarbrook and all the memories it contained, had been the worst, with friends trying to
convince her that changing everything in her life was going to be something wonderful, but she had gotten
through the worst of that. For better or worse, she was Mistress of Elysian Fields now, and fully fourteen
pages or so into a book that had been due two years before, but still, it was a start.
So there had been no reason for her to relive it all again while driving with her paper bag from
Carson‘s Hardware on the car seat beside her, except perhaps that the radio was playing an old song by
Harry Nilsson that had suddenly opened the door to too many memories. All at once, she was again forcing
herself to accept the inescapable fact that Desmond no longer loved her, refused to live with her, that her
life as she had known it for twenty five years was over, that she would somehow have to start living all
over again in the Real World, the world that was not Cedarbrook, a nightmare world in which she had
never held much interest. She was no longer Nora Charles, part of a fictional duo of sophisticated New
Yorkers, but rather Alice in Wonderland, a character in a nonsensical story filled with insane half-humans
who cared nothing for her or anything else, who observed one another with supreme disinterest as their
fellows suffered and died, only lamenting their own petty losses.
―What about my losses?‖ she had screamed inside her car. She had lost her husband, her career,
her self-respect, and her future, and all anyone had to say about it was that everything would be all right
and that it was time to move on. That was then, this is now. You knew he saw other women; don‘t pretend
to be blind, Mo. You‘re better off without him. That was then, this is now. How about lunch on Tuesday?
The weight loss looks good on you, Mo. But maybe a little blush. You‘ve just got to show him that you
can make it without him. He was too old for you, anyway. Come to dinner on Friday. Just a few couples.
And you. That was then, this is now.
But even that was then, and nothing was now. Even the well-meaning, bumbling friends were
gone.
It was all gone. All of it.
And so she had gone into the church, blind with tears, because it had been directly beside the place
where she had had to pull over in her car because she had been crying too hard to continue driving.
There had been no one inside. If Mo had been thinking, she would have guessed that churches
were not left open and unattended. In fact, a number of people had been inside at the time, although none
in the sanctuary. But Mo was not a churchgoer, and since most of her exposure to religious life came from
black and white Bing Crosby movies on late-night television, she harbored the idea that churches, like
chain convenience stores, were open 24-7 and filled perpetually with music.
There had been no music, and the unpadded flip-up kneelers scared her. The sign outside had said
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. But weren‘t Episcopalians Protestants? Wasn‘t that Henry the Eighth‘s
church?
They knelt. That was disturbing. She felt that more holiness was expected of her than she was
capable of mustering. For a moment she contemplated the scene in The Nun’s Story in which Audrey
Hepburn prostrated herself full-length in the shape of a cross before the altar. Such a posture would have
conveyed Mo‘s sense of utter despair and surrender more accurately than sitting primly on a wooden bench
with her legs crossed, but she did not feel she was up to the drama. Did she have to kneel? Or should she
run out while she could, spill her tears in unconsecrated ground?
Well, she decided, wherever she was, it would have to do. She folded her hands on the back of the
pew in front of her and began to pray.
―Dear...‖ Dear what? Father? Mother? Force of the Universe? Part Within Myself Which Brings
Comfort?
Pointless, she thought, laying her head upon her hands. She had no frame of reference. No belief
system. No childhood prayers to which she could revert. She was simply a weary person taking shelter
from the world. She wept. She wept for everything that had gone wrong in the past and for all the fears of
the unknown future. She must have gone on for a very long time, because when she finally looked up, the
stained glass windows, so vibrant with color when she had first entered the church, had grown black, their
pictures now indiscernible.
And a woman was sitting near her, watching her.
Mo gasped, overcome with embarrassment. She hadn‘t even felt the presence of another person.
The woman was sitting right beside her, and yet Mo had had no idea that anyone had even come into the
church.
―Please,‖ the woman said. ―I didn‘t want to frighten you.‖
She was a little mouse of a woman, drab, small, thin, colorless. Someone out of a black and white
movie, with no color of her own.
She was African American, Mo guessed, of the small-town Church Lady type. Her wavy brown
hair, threaded with premature gray and pulled back into a bun, cried out for a little hat with a flower
springing from it.
Mo caught herself. These were cruel thoughts, she knew, that had come to mind because of her
own discomfort. She was ashamed of having broken down so badly that it was clear even to strangers that
something was wrong with her.
―Nothing‘s wrong,‖ she said in answer to herself, and felt immediately foolish.
―It‘s all right,‖ the woman said.
Mo rose to leave.
―I‘m Henrietta Yauch,‖ the woman said softly. ―I work here, in the office.‖
Mo closed her eyes in dismay. ―I see,‖ she said. ―You wanted to close up, and I—‖
―No,‖ Henrietta said, her voice so gentle, her lips forming a half smile. ―No, it‘s not like that. I‘m
a volunteer. I was just coming in when I saw you.‖
Mo swallowed, wondering how she could make her exit. The woman blocked her way to the
aisle. If she went out the other way, it would require her to turn her back on the woman and walk the full
ten remaining feet of the pew before she could beat a retreat toward the door.
―I know you want to be alone,‖ Henrietta went on. ―But sometimes it‘s good to have a friend.‖
Mo wanted to tell her that she had plenty of friends, so many friends they were coming out her ass,
thank you, and how dare this little Sunday school teacher presume that she needed another. And if she did,
it certainly wouldn‘t be some do-gooder rice Christian from the local WASP church. She wanted to say
these things, but instead she burst into tears.
―Honey,‖ Henrietta said, standing up to embrace her.
Mo didn‘t want to be touched. She was brittle, fragile, hot with shame, wanting only to escape
this place, hating it, hating the charitable woman who was putting her little sepia arms around her as if she
cared a whit that Mo Owens had lost her husband to another woman. If Henrietta Yauch had been white,
she thought, she would have cast her off with a shrug. But you didn‘t push away black people, even if they
were beige. ―I‘m all right,‖ Mo said, her arms dangling awkwardly at her sides.
―Let me hold you,‖ Henrietta said, so softly that the words seemed to sit in Mo‘s ear for a moment
before entering her brain. It was such a bold thing to say, Mo thought later, much later, after she had gone
back to her cabin in the trailer park and lay in the big carved bed that Desmond had ordered from Bavaria
during a long-ago vacation in the Black Forest. Let me hold you.
No one had held her since Desmond, in that bed. Had he loved her then, that last time when his
hands had touched her face with such tenderness, when he had explored her body as if he were discovering
it for the first time, and accepted her caresses with sighs and kisses? Had he known it would be the last
time, or had he been surprised when the moment came to choose between his wife and his mistress?
And so Mo had let this strange, silly-looking woman hold her, forgetting momentarily her
American aversion to physical contact and to emotional intimacy with strangers. She had let Henrietta
Yauch hold her while she sobbed wildly, uncontrollably, her tears dropping cold onto the back of
Henrietta‘s thin dress, knowing that the woman understood nothing of her sorrow, or of Mo herself. It was
the embrace of a dispassionate stranger, comforting in its anonymity. Henrietta Yauch was not reminding
her about that being then and this being now. She didn‘t even know, nor did she seem to care, what the
problem was. She offered herself only as a pair of arms, and Mo let herself sink into them as if those arms
were rescuing her from some terrifying freefall.
Angel, Mo thought, not for the last time. In the church, the word remained half formed, as if it
were printed on a banner that floated through the air, visible only a letter or two at a time. But later, in the
bed at Elysian Fields, she would wonder, almost seriously, if the woman who had introduced herself by
name were really not a living person at all, but a being—an imaginary being, perhaps, born of Mo‘s
loneliness somewhere in the depths of her overactive writer‘s imagination—come to lift her momentarily
out of her well of despair.
―What is your name, dear one?‖ Henrietta asked when Mo‘s tears had subsided. Mo was fumbling
in her handbag for a tissue. Henrietta produced one, flowered, neatly folded, hygienic.
―Thank you,‖ Mo said. ―I‘m Mo.‖ She blew her nose. ―My name is Mari Owens, but everyone
calls me Mo.‖
―Because your initials are M.O,‖ Henrietta said.
―Yes. That‘s why.‖ Mo was suddenly bone-tired, feeling as if she could curl up on the wooden
pew and sleep right then and there.
―And what‘s your e-mail address?‖ the woman asked brightly.
―What?‖ The question seemed to be a supreme non sequitur. ―My e-mail?‖
Henrietta nodded enthusiastically. ―Mine‘s HENYA, all caps. From Henrietta Yauch. Do you
have e-mail?‖
―I... I suppose so.‖ Oh, Christ, she’s going to want to send me religious tracts, Mo thought. Well,
what did you think? You fell apart in her arms, so now she‘s going to try to convert you, or at least get you
to write a check. Tit for tat. Nothing comes free, not even a hug. ―Look, why don‘t I just make a donation,‖
she began, taking out her checkbook.
At that, Henrietta shrank back, seeming to grow physically smaller. ―I just wanted to say hello to
you,‖ she said in a very small voice.
―Oh, yes, of course,‖ Mo said, finding her professional smile. ―That was lovely. And I really
appreciated your concern for me. Now if you could just give me the name of this church...‖ She waved the
checkbook.
Henrietta swallowed. Her eyes were big and glassy, as if she were herself on the verge of tears, as
she stood up abruptly and walked down the aisle and through a door.
Mo was left alone, her checkbook in her hand, experiencing what could only be called an
existential dilemma. She had offered the money as a ransom for herself: I‘ll pay you to leave me alone.
And yet the woman had performed a real act of kindness. Money hadn‘t been enough for her. Mo could
leave it at that, accept the fact that she had insulted a kind individual who may or may not have been a nut
or a semi-nut, but certainly no one Mo wanted for a friend. Or she could try to make amends.
She sighed, put away the checkbook, and left the church. A sign made up of magnetic letters
outside the sanctuary door read: WORSHIP 10:30 A.M. UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE CELEBRATE
EVERYTHING. Below it were some brochures stamped with St. Peter‘s address and telephone number.
Mo picked one up. Inside her car, she wrote HENYA across the front of it.
Oh, hell, she thought. She hated e-mail. Right after Desmond left, she had been plagued by a fan
turned cyber-stalker. The police had handled the situation well enough so that Mo could have resumed her
network of on-line correspondences, but she used the opportunity to rid herself of electronic friendships
altogether. It took too much time away from her work, and much of what people sent her was worthless
and a waste of time. If she wanted to read jokes, she reasoned, she would go to the library. And so she had
cut everyone off, hoping that her friends would like her enough to call her on the telephone or write her a
letter if they wanted to reach her, and not particularly caring if they didn‘t. It had worked out well. She felt
safer in her isolation.
And now she would have to open up that whole can of worms again, for someone named Henrietta
Yauch. HENYA, her new e-mail buddy.
Dear Henya, she typed, knowing that she would regret what she was about to do, but driven
nevertheless by guilt that held her like sticky glue to this person whose kindness had never been wanted…
Had it?
Please forgive me for my behavior earlier today...
That had been a few weeks ago. Mo had not told anyone about the incident in the church, and the
dreaded e-mailer Henrietta Yauch. But here she was again, this time traveling through cyberspace to bring
Mo face to face with her shame again.
Will you accept an Instant Message from HENYA?
Mo sighed. Yes, she wrote.
(Extra Space)
HENYA: Hi, Mo. Sorry it’s taken me so long to write. It’s been busy at the hospital. I’m a nurse at
Beltsville Memorial. Maybe I told you.
She hadn‘t. Henya had, in fact, revealed pitifully little about herself. She worked in the office at
St. Peter‘s, apparently on a volunteer basis. That was about all of herself that she had mentioned. The rest
of everything they had spoken of had been about Mo.
Let me hold you.
MOwens: I’m happy to hear from you.
That was a lie, of course. Mo had far too many people in her life already, and she was rarely happy
to hear from anyone. But there were social forms to be followed.
Like offering to give a donation to Henya‘s church, she thought. That had backfired. Well, it had
been pretty heavy-handed. And she had apologized. Which was probably why the woman was IM‘ing her
now, during her workday. Why couldn‘t people just tell the truth? No, I don‘t want to begin a relationship
with a professional Christian. I only pretend to believe in God so that people won‘t yell at me.
HENYA: I hear you’ve bought Elysian Fields. How do you suppose I found out?
MOwens: Beats me.
Today, today, Mo thought. Cut to the chase, here. Why are you bothering me?
HENYA: Our organist at St. Peter’s is your friend, Katherine Davis!!! Isn’t it a small world???
MOwens: Amazing.
HENYA: How’s business?
MOwens: Actually, it’s an ex-trailer park. The only people who live here besides me are a few
squatters who should be leaving soon.
HENYA: Well, I’ve got some good news for you, then, at least I hope so! I’ve recently bought an
Airstream with my savings. I’m planning to travel around the country a little during my vacation
(my time off starts tomorrow), and I’d like to make Elysian Fields my first stop! So you’ll have at
least one paying tenant!!
What? Mo slapped her hand over her mouth. She couldn‘t be serious. Bought a trailer? Moving
in? But why hadn‘t she asked Mo about it first? How was Mo going to tell her that she couldn‘t come, that
the land was just for Mo, that she already had more than enough people encroaching on her privacy?
HENYA: Is that all right with you?
Mo felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. She didn‘t want to offend Henya, whom she‘d ignored
and treated callously after receiving nothing but kindness from her, but... but this was her home. At least
that was how she had planned it, her home, not some cheesy commercial enterprise...
HENYA: Mo? Are you there?
Mo‘s head was resting on one hand. Shit, she thought.
MOwens: I’m here. But the trailer park is a temporary thing. I wasn’t planning on making it a
business.
Long pause.
HENYA: Don’t you want me to come?
Total guilt. Well, it would only be for a day or two, she supposed. No point in being a shrew about
it.
MOwens: Of course, please come, if you can bear the primitive conditions. I’d just hate to cut your
holiday short.
What a crock. You are the biggest liar in the world. Hypocrites R Us.
HENYA: No, it’ll be great to start my trip among other trailer people! Maybe they can give me some
tips!! LOL!!
Yeah, LOL. I‘m LMAO over the whole situation, she thought.
Through her window she watched as Bebe labored over an almost certainly illegal firepit in the
middle of the configuration of trailers, causing the place to resemble the campsite of a wagon train. Her
roommate Cynthia was dragging out what appeared to be a cauldron. Nearby, Andras was hammering at an
ancient canoe, while Jazzy performed situps on a purple yoga mat to strains of Middle Eastern music
coming from their new dwelling. Beyond them, Elsie Nolan hung wash on a clothesline. A stray dog
walked by, depositing turds on the grass.
This was the price of her greed, Mo thought. There was a reason why Elysian Fields had been
sold so cheaply. Lots of reasons, and they were all in front of her. With another to come. All she had
wanted was to be be alone. Instead, she was finding herself in charge of an entire community. She didn‘t
even know if what she was doing was legal. Didn‘t she need a license to operate a place like this?
HENYA: It will be all right, Mari. You’ll see.
The words on the page looked as if they had come from God. Or from Araiama, her character,
who apparently had also gotten into the habit of writing to Mo.
Henya signed off.
Outside, Andras cursed as he hammered his thumb. Jazzie stood up, examined him, and shrieked,
―Eeeeew!‖
With a sigh, Mo went into the bathroom for some peroxide and bandages. ―Coming,‖ she
muttered.
Chapter Eleven
Andras
Given the personality differences between Andras Kodaly and Ned Marcozzi, Mo knew, in some
secret recess of her heart, that it was only a matter of time before something horrible would happen. She
just didn‘t expect it to happen so soon.
Jazzy had covered their trailer with hundreds of yards of ribbon (mostly purple, she had explained,
but with a few strands of moss green for balance) on which she had sewn thousands of tiny bells that
tinkled with the slightest breeze. The effect was ethereal, as if the trailer were floating on air.
Even Andras‘ hammering did not dispel the fairyland ambience surrounding the trailers, which
were assembled like spokes of a wagon wheel, with Bebe‘s firepit in the center. Her fire, now blazing full
and crackling, added to the general feeling of otherworldliness.
―Do you need these?‖ Mo asked, offering the peroxide and bandages.
Andras looked at his thumb. ―No,‖ he said sullenly. ―Hurts like a bastard, though.‖
―I hope the nail doesn‘t turn all black,‖ Jazzy grunted, continuing her sit-ups. ―That always looks
so disgusting.‖
Mo fought down her annoyance with the woman. ―Well, okay,‖ she said. ―But just in case, I‘ll
leave a few of these...‖ She was taking out a few bandages when Ned showed up unexpectedly.
―Oh, Mo, about those legal questions you asked me to... Ouch,‖ he said, noticing Andras‘ thumb.
―All part of the job,‖ Andras said with a swagger. ―You get used to it.‖ He jerked his head toward
the canoe. ―Found this on the lake here. Figure I‘ll fix it up for the missus.‖
―Er..‖ Mo waved the bottle of peroxide vaguely. ―What about your truck?‖
―What about it?‖
―I thought you were going to fix that. Relatively quickly.‖
―Needs a part.‖
Ned was poking at the canoe. ―Are you trying to patch this hole with wood?‖ he asked.
―Wood‘s been floating boats since Noah,‖ Andras replied. He grinned. ―Ain‘t that right, Jazzie?‖
―How do I know?‖ she answered irritably. Cords in her neck stood out starkly with the effort of
her workout.
Andras winked. ―She likes the wood. Don‘t you, babe?‖
―Oh, Christ, shut up,‖ Jazzy said.
―But the hull is made of fiberglass,‖ Ned noted, still examining the canoe.
―So?‖
―So wherever you join it...‖ He traced his finger along the hull. ―Look here, it‘s started already.‖
―What‘s started?‖
―This crack.‖
―That‘s nothing.‖
Ned stepped back from it. ―It will be,‖ he said, laughing. ―As soon as you take this on the water,
it‘ll burst open like a watermelon.‖
―I told you it was a piece of shit,‖ Jazzy said.
Andras narrowed his eyes and surveyed Ned appraisingly. ―Like a watermelon, huh?‖
―I‘m afraid so. But if you take out the wood now, you may be able to mend the crack. I‘ve got
some stuff that you paint on—‖
―And what makes you think you know so much about boats?‖ He moved swiftly so that he stood
toe-to-toe in front of the much smaller man, then folded his arms so that his biceps bulged out at the level
of Ned‘s eyes.
Ned‘s smile disappeared. ―I... I just thought you‘d want to know,‖ he said meekly.
The air became suddenly charged. Even Cynthia, who up till now had seemed fully occupied at
the fire, tending a soup pot filled with slimy-looking seaweed floating in green liquid, stood up. ―Ned grew
up here,‖ she offered. ―It‘s his family‘s canoe.‖
―Oh, so he‘s king of the trailer park,‖ Andras said. ‗Scuse me, your Majesty.‖
―Shut up, Andras,‖ Jazzy said.
Cynthia clucked. ―Look, I just meant that Ned‘s been around a lot of boats. And he fixes all our
units.‖
―Yeah, I‘ll bet,‖ Andras said, leering at Cynthia. ―I‘d like to fix your unit.‖
This last was spoken just as Bebe emerged from their trailer with a bunch of carrots. She looked
at Cynthia, arching an eyebrow. ―What was that?‖ she mumbled.
Cynthia shook her head.
―Eeew,‖ Jazzy said.
―So anyway, I guess I‘ll be going,‖ Ned said.
―You do that, trailer king,‖ Andras said.
Jazzy turned on her side. ―Oh, get off it.‖
―And if I ever need any help from a faggot, I‘ll let you know.‖
Cynthia gasped.
―All right, Andras.‖ Mo walked up to him. ―I think it‘s about time that you and...‖ She nodded
toward Jazzy, momentarily forgetting her name.
Andras was still delighting in his triumph. ―That‘ll be the day,‖ he sneered. ―That‘ll be the day
pigs fly.‖
―All you need is an airplane ticket, mister,‖ Ned said, suddenly emboldened.
Andras squinted.
―He doesn‘t get it,‖ Jazzy said. She poked Andras. ―He‘s calling you a pig.‖
―Who are you calling a pig?‖ Andras bellowed.
By this time, Ned was beyond intimidation. ―Well, now that you mention it...‖ His lips curled
downward. ―You.‖
Everyone seemed to converge at once. Mo and Cynthia stepped forward to intervene just as
Andras gave Ned a mighty push that sent the smaller man sprawling in the dirt. The defecating dog began
to bark unceasingly, so that Elsie came out of her trailer wielding a rolled-up newspaper.
―Quiet down, you cur, or I‘ll...‖
Her voice trailed away as Bebe tossed her carrots to the ground and charged into the fray, taking
Andras down in a spectacular flying tackle.
―Want to fight, big man?‖ she taunted as the two of them rolled toward the firepit. Andras grabbed
at the ground, black with the remains of old fires, and smeared it onto Bebe‘s face. In turn, Bebe trapped
Andras‘ head with two thumbs strategically placed beneath his adam‘s apple.
From inside her trailer, where she had fled, Elsie let out a blood-curdling scream. Mo ran to call
the police, but Ned stopped her.
―Bebe can take care of herself,‖ he said quietly. With great dignity, he got to his feet and dusted
off the knees of his trousers. His eyes were shooting daggers toward the woman who had taken his place in
the fight.
Bebe‘s face was ferocious. Streaked with charcoal, she resembled an ancient warrior woman
engaging her enemy in a battle to the death.
―Stop it!‖ Mo shouted.
―Holy balls,‖ Jazzy said, finally rising from the ground. She shook out her hair.
Cynthia only stared in astonishment.
―Uncle?‖ Bebe rasped.
Andras‘ eyes were rolling back in his head. His face was purple.
―You saying uncle, dogshit?‖
He nodded.
With a haughty snort of triumph, she released him.
―Man oh man,‖ he said, sitting up and rubbing his neck.
She grinned. She was still straddling him as if he were a horse.
―How much do you weigh?‖ Andras asked.
With a guffaw, she got up, protecting herself from a possible kick to the groin.
―Hey, I wouldn‘t do anything like that,‖ he said. ―Fair‘s fair.‖
―Glad you see it that way.‖
―And besides, you got no balls to kick,‖ he elaborated. ―That is, unless there‘s something you
ain‘t told me about yourself.‖ He beamed at his joke, revealing two missing front teeth. ―Jeez, but you
fight like a man.‖
Bebe was looking truculent.
―I meant that as a compliment,‖ Andras added quickly.
―Some compliment,‖ Cynthia said.
―I take it as one.‖ Bebe extended her hand to help him up.
―Thank you, ma‘am,‖ he said. ―Hey, what‘d you say your name was?‖
―Bebe.‖
―Okay, Bebe. You‘re all right.‖
―Well you aren‘t,‖ Cynthia said with her nails-on-chalkboard voice. ―Who do you think you are,
calling people names and acting like a Neanderthal?‖
Jazzy laughed. ―See?‖ She spoke to Andras, sharing a joke. ―A cave man. That‘s what she‘s
calling you.‖
Andras thought about it for a moment. ―I been in caves,‖ he said innocently.
―I‘m talking about how you picked on poor Ned.‖
―Cynthia,‖ Ned said, blushing furiously. ―Let it go.‖
―But it‘s not right!‖ she pouted. ―If Bebe hadn‘t come to your rescue, God only knows what that
monster would have done to you.‖
―Oh, God,‖ Ned muttered.
Andras beamed.
―You‘d better apologize to him, or else!‖ Cynthia asserted.
―Oh, yeah?‖ Jazzy sauntered up to her. ―Or else what?‖
―Girls! Girls!‖ Andras called, waving his hands. ―Now we just got over one fight—‖
―Do not refer to us as girls!‖ Cynthia shouted.
―What?‖ Andras was genuinely puzzled. He looked at Bebe, who shrugged. ―Hey, just because I
called you a girl don‘t mean you can‘t be a dyke,‖ he explained.
Ned threw up his hands. ―I‘m getting out of here.‖
―Hey, Bud,‖ Andras called to him. ―No hard feelings, okay?‖
Ned turned his back and saluted him with his middle finger.
Andras shook his head. ―I‘ll never figure you people out.‖ He looked up quickly at Bebe. ―Er...
Present company not included,‖ he added.
Cynthia stomped back into the trailer. Mo followed after Ned. The dog urinated on the fire,
causing a cloud of steam to shoot up around Cynthia‘s cauldron. Bebe made a threatening move, and the
dog darted away.
Andras stared after Cynthia as she slammed the door behind her. ―Nice looking babe you got,‖ he
said appreciatively.
―Pain in the ass,‖ Bebe said.
―You‘d be nice, too, if you wasn‘t so fat.‖
Bebe looked him over him for a long moment, clearly deciding whether or not to resume combat.
―Well, you would.‖ He shrugged, squinting at the blue sky. ―Nice day, ain‘t it?‖
She looked up. ―Yeah,‖ Bebe said.
Chapter Twelve
Chorus
Henya arrived that very night, toting an Airstream behind her four-wheel drive Subaru. ―Isn‘t it
beautiful?‖ she whispered. ―I can take it anywhere!‖
Mo had prepared for her arrival by calling Katherine Davis, so she knew that Henya had never
been out of Tennessee in her life.
―She‘s an odd duck,‖ Katherine had said. ―Super nice, always helpful. I don‘t know how Father
Gordon ever managed without her. But if anyone was ever born to live without a man, it‘s… Oh, Mo, I‘m
sorry.‖
―You‘re sorry because I don‘t have a man?‖ Mo asked acidly, herself suddenly sorry that she had
ever called.
―No, I didn‘t mean… That is…‖
―Just tell me what you know about her. She wants to come here.‖
―To the trailer park?‖
―Right. How weird is that? She says she‘s going on a tour of America or something, and plans to
make this her first stop.‖
―Well, I‘m sure she won‘t be any trouble,‖ Katherine said. ―She‘s not a child.‖
―Early thirties, I‘d say.‖
―Hmm. She could look so much better, though. Some hair color, a little makeup… Oh, well.‖
Apparently Henya had mysteriously appeared at the home of the Episcopal priest when she was a
young girl. Father Gordon Follett and his wife, Charlotte, had kept the mystery alive by not explaining
anything about the girl‘s origins, which had naturally led to a lot of speculation.
Whenever people asked Father Gordon where Henya came from, he had smiled beatifically and
answered, ―Why, from God, where all children come from.‖ Mrs. Follett had also said nothing about
Henrietta except that she was growing nicely, thank you, or that she would be graduating from high school
soon, or that young Henrietta was planning on a career in nursing.
―I mean, she‘s very light skinned,‖ Katherine said. ―Victoria says that her mother was a prostitute,
and she blackmailed Father Gordon into doing right by her because he was the girl‘s real father.‖
―I thought her name was Yauch.‖
―Yes, but Victoria says that‘s just a blind. Well, you know Victoria.‖
―Victoria Tanner? She goes to your church, too?‖
―Oh, she goes wherever she thinks someone‘s buying or selling a house. But St. Peter‘s is the
church where she grew up. Or got married. Or something, I don‘t know. Anyway, you have to watch out
for her. She‘s so snoopy.‖
Mo dutifully admired the Airstream. ―So you left your apartment, just like that?‖ she asked.
―I live with my parents. The Folletts?‖ She raised her eyebrows in a question.
―Oh, yes. Katherine‘s mentioned them. She loves being at St. Peters.‖ Mo did not mention that
what Katherine loved most was banging the choir director.
―So I‘ve still got a place to go home to,‖ Henya said. ―But I want to see the world. That‘s why I
bought this.‖ She patted the Airstream as if it were a large sleek pet. ―You know, I‘ve always wanted to see
Yellowstone and Cape Cod. I‘d like to see a palm tree, or real mountains. I‘ve never seen an ocean. I‘ve
never been to New York City. Not that I‘d want to,‖ she added. ―But the point is, this way, I can just pick
up and go.‖
―A whole new way of life,‖ Mo said.
―It‘s my chance, Mo.‖ Henya smiled shyly. ―Actually, part of my inspiration came from you.‖
―What?‖
She laughed, embarrassed. ―Well, after that day… I remembered your name, Mo Owens. I knew
you were somebody famous, although I didn‘t know what you were famous for until I looked you up. I‘m
sorry, but I hadn‘t read any of your books until then. But I‘ve read two of them now.‖
―Ah,‖ Mo said. ―Er… thanks.‖
―They were really good.‖
Mo nodded.
―So anyway, I thought if somebody as famous as you could start over the way you did…‖ She
blushed wildly. ―When I looked you up, there was an article about… well..‖
―I know.‖
―But it was great how you came here all by yourself. That part wasn‘t in the article. I found that
out from Katherine. Anyway, it was just so brave and everything. I thought hey, if she can start her life
over like that, maybe I could, too. Maybe I‘ll be getting my chance, the way you got yours.‖
Mo was taken aback. She had never thought of her move to Elysian Fields as a chance. It was
more like a retreat—or, rather, it would be, if only she could get all the other people out of here. A place
where she could hide out and lick her wounds. And perhaps never leave.
―I‘m not brave, Henya,‖ she said. ―But I‘m glad for you. Who knows what‘ll turn up in
Yellowstone?‖
(Extra Space)
After Mo broke the news that another tenant would be joining them temporarily, the other
residents of Elysian Fields, headed by Bebe and Cynthia, prepared a welcoming party for Henya. Even
Elsie Nolan took part, baking a cake which she deposited anonymously in front of Mo‘s door.
―Oh, Lord,‖ Bebe said. ―It‘s pink. She probably put blood in the frosting.‖
―Nevertheless, it was nice of her to make it, and I‘m going to put it in the center of the card table,‖
Mo said. ―Maybe that will help Elsie feel like she‘s a part of things.‖
―She won‘t come,‖ Bebe said, lighting the fire.
―Why not?‖
Bebe blew on the small flames. ―She hasn‘t left the trailer since she took Niall to the nursing
home.‖
Mo stared for several moments at Elsie‘s rusted, old-fashioned trailer. ―I guess she loved him a
lot.‖
Bebe blurted a raspberry. ―Please,‖ she said. ―All they ever did was fight. Yell, yell, yell. They
were the kind of people who never did anything quietly. Even Niall‘s farts were so loud, you could hear
them across the lake. I‘m not kidding.‖
―Well, maybe Elsie misses them. I‘m going to invite her.‖
―I‘ll put my things in order,‖ Henya said.
(Extra Space)
Mo knocked doggedly at Elsie‘s door for a full five minutes before she answered. ―Why the hell
do you keep pounding like that?‖ Elsie snarled. ―If somebody doesn‘t answer the door, it means they don‘t
want to see you.‖
―I‘m sorry, Elsie. I thought maybe you didn‘t hear me.‖
―Nothing wrong with my hearing. What do you think, just because I‘m old, I must be deaf?‖
―No, that‘s not it,‖ Mo said. ―I just thought you might like to join us. A friend of mine is moving
in for a while, and I‘d like you to meet her.‖
―I thought we were all supposed to get the hell out,‖ Elsie grumbled. ―Or was that just me? You
want me out so you can move your friends in, is that it?‖
―No, I... It‘s not like that,‖ Mo stumbled.
―Well, you did tell us to leave.‖
―Yes, but... that is...‖
―And then you invite whoever it is—‖
―Henya. She‘s really very nice—‖
―Henya. Stupid name. What is she, some kind of lesbo like them others?‖ She gestured toward
Bebe at the firepit outside with her chin. It was rather a hairy chin, Mo noticed, covered with what might at
one time have been a soft down, but overgrown now into a scraggly goat‘s beard. ―Is that what you‘re
going to do to this place, fill it with homos?‖
―Elsie, that‘s really going too—‖
―Oh, I know these things, believe me,‖ Elsie went on, waving down any objections Mo may have
had. ―If you don‘t want me here, you can just tell me. You don‘t have to do this big song and dance about
it.‖
―Now stop, Elsie,‖ Mo said, taking the old woman‘s hands and hanging onto them despite Elsie‘s
attempts to pull away. ―It‘s true that I don‘t want to run a trailer park.‖
―Mobile homes. They‘re not trailers.‖
―All right. Whatever we call them, I don‘t want to run Elysian Fields as a business, and in time I‘d
like everyone here to find another place to live. But I‘m not in a big hurry about it, and I‘m not imposing
any deadlines yet.‖
―Then why are you having new people come? This Henny Penny?‖
―Henny Penny is only stopping by on her way to other places. She‘s traveling around the country.
This isn‘t going to be a permanent home for her. Or anyone, except me,‖ she added firmly.
―Hah! I‘ll die here, you‘ll see.‖
―I hope not, Elsie.‖
―And it‘ll be soon.‖
―Thank you for the cake,‖ Mo said.
Elsie shrugged. ―What else have I got to do with my time?‖
―It was very kind of you. I‘m sure it will be delicious.‖
―Ah, you should have seen the cakes Niall made! Beautiful.‖ She pronounced it bee-yoo-tee-full.
―There was one, the people wanted a picture of a horse on it. Oh, you should have seen it! And that was
before the days of these goddamned stencils. He drew that horse with the tip of a frosting bag.‖ She
nodded once in punctuation.
―How is your husband?‖ Mo asked gently.
Elsie turned away, shaking her head. Suddenly her whole bearing changed from a feisty, energetic
dynamo into a hunched, rheumy-eyed old woman. ―Yesterday he didn‘t remember who I was.‖
―I‘m sorry,‖ Mo said.
Elsie sat down at her dinette. The white laminate table was filthy. There was a long tear in the
yellow vinyl of the wraparound seat. ―Yeah, he‘s not so good anymore.‖ Her voice was quavering and
barely audible, as if the effort of speaking were becoming too difficult for her to manage.
There was a long and awkward silence during which Elsie seemed to have forgotten that Mo was
there.
―Will you come?‖ Mo asked at last, as gently as she could.
―Come where? Oh.‖ She dismissed the party with a disdainful wave. ―Enjoy the cake, all you
young people.‖
Mo smiled. ―I‘m fifty years old.‖
―Young,‖ Elsie said. ―You still got a life ahead of you.‖
―So do you, Elsie.‖
―Go on. Go. I‘m tired.‖
―Are you—‖
―Let me be,‖ Elsie said irritably.
As Mo stepped out of her trailer, Elsie was rubbing her eyes with her bony fists, like a sleepy
child.
(Extra Space)
Once the bonfire was blazing, everyone gathered around it. Prompted by Bebe, they all called out
―Henya!‖ outside the shiny new Airstream.
Henya peered out, blushing with pleasure.
She had already met Bebe. Mo introduced her to Cynthia, Andras, Jazzy, and Ned.
―You‘re all so kind,‖ Henya said, basking in their welcome.
―Hell, the more people we got, the better chance there is of us staying,‖ Andras said.
Mo‘s head snapped up.
Jazzy poked him. ―Did I say something wrong?‖ Andras asked.
―It‘s not a question of—‖ Mo began.
―We know,‖ Ned said, putting his hand on her shoulder. He glared at Andras, who shrugged
dramatically.
―How‘s about some burgers?‖ Bebe suggested to change the subject.
―And lentils!‖ Cynthia added enthusiastically. ―I just made a pot of them.‖
―Eeew,‖ Jazzy commented.
―Actually, I‘ll just have lentils,‖ Henya said. ―I‘m a vegetarian.‖
Cynthia beamed. She was walking over to Henya when she stopped in her tracks, squinting. She
held her cupped hand over her eyes like a visor. ―Someone‘s coming,‖ she said.
―Man, I hope it isn‘t that realtor,‖ Bebe said. ―I‘ve already gotten into one fistfight today.‖
―No, it isn‘t Victoria,‖ Mo said. ―I‘m not sure, but I think it‘s... ‖
It was Forrest McCormick, driving his battered van and trailing a U-Haul container. Beside him
sat Katherine Davis. When she spotted Mo and the others, she waved excitedly and stuck her head out the
window.
―We‘re coming to stay with you!‖ she shouted, laughing. A moment later, she saw her own
reflection in the van‘s rearview mirror. The wind had cut a swath through her perfect, heretofore seamless
hairdo. With a shudder, Katherine retreated inside the cab and reached frantically for the Mason Pearson
brush she kept inside her pocketbook.
―Oh, no,‖ Mo whispered.
―Two more,‖ Andras whooped, clapping his hands together.
(Extra Space)
Throughout the evening, Katherine maintained a wild-eyed, vaguely frightened look of nervous
excitement. ―I‘ve left Richard,‖ she told Mo while pulling three gigantic Louis Vuitton suitcases out of the
U-Haul. ―I just told him I was leaving with Forrest to live in a trailer, and that was that.‖
―What trailer?‖ Mo asked with a hint of irritation. ―Where are you going to put all your stuff,
Katherine?‖
―Well, couldn‘t you find us something?‖ She blinked, looking demented.
―Nothing you‘d like,‖ Mo said. ―These trailers have been abandoned. I don‘t think anything
works in them anymore.‖
―Oh.‖ Katherine sat down on one of the suitcases. ―I just don‘t know what‘s going to become of
me,‖ she said, beginning to tremble. ―I never thought I could do it. Actually leave. But Richard was just
being so bossy. It was over the lambchops I cooked for dinner. He said isn‘t there—‖
―It doesn‘t matter what he said,‖ Mo interrupted, taking Katherine‘s hand. ―The fact is, you left.‖
And for some idiotic reason, you came here, she added silently.
Music came from the direction of the bonfire. Forrest was strumming a guitar while the others
listened attentively.
―He was so happy,‖ Katherine said. ―Forrest, that is.‖
―I don‘t doubt it.‖
―And Richard didn‘t care.‖
―How do you know?‖
―He just said go ahead. He wasn‘t even sad.‖
Mo pictured Desmond‘s face when he‘d told her he was moving back to New York. He hadn‘t
mentioned Toni Berenstein, the woman for whom he was leaving Mo. He hadn‘t even acknowledged that
the move would be permanent. He had said something about needing the polluted air of the city, something
clever. He had fairly danced with the discomfort of that cheap charade.
And Mo had known it, recognized the dance for what it was, and had let it go on anyway.
Desmond had never been able to face confrontations. Even this final, humiliating leavetaking had been
surrounded by smoke and mirrors. With his charm and his wit and his devastating smile, he had confirmed
everything Mo had dreaded without speaking one direct word.
And she had gone along with it. While her heart pounded in her chest and her stomach sank to a
place between her legs, while her throat closed, fighting off the urge to scream, while sweat sprang from
her armpits and nausea engulfed her, while she felt with every cell in her body that she would die, wanted
to die, in the next instant, Mo had smiled blandly and looked away. Of course, she had said. I’ll enjoy
having a quiet summer to myself. She hadn‘t even mentioned that he was leaving her on the anniversary of
Ben‘s death, because she knew that it would have made Desmond feel guilty.
She had made it as easy as possible for him to leave her.
But why? she wondered. Why had she been so careful not to ignite that wary fire in Desmond‘s
tortured eyes?
Because you knew he would leave anyway, she thought.
―He probably knew there was nothing he could do to make you stay,‖ Mo said numbly.
Yes. It had been the only civilized thing to do. Poor Richard, she thought, watching Katherine‘s
flushed, terrified, ecstatic face. Your wife‘s decided you weren‘t enough fun.
―It doesn‘t have to be fancy,‖ Forrest said, strolling over.
It took Mo a moment to remember that they had been talking about the trailer. ―I‘m afraid it won‘t
be anything resembling fancy,‖ she said. ―In fact, I don‘t even know what they‘re like inside. I was
planning to have them hauled away.‖
―Hey, some of them are really nice,‖ Andras called from the bonfire.
―See?‖ Katherine said. ―We‘ll be fine.‖
Mo doubted very much that Katherine Davis‘ taste would have much in common with Andras‘.
―We‘ll give you a hand moving in,‖ Andras said, rising. He clapped Ned on the shoulder. ―Me
and my bud here. That okay with you, Ned?‖
Nonplussed, Ned could only stare at the enormous man.
―Let‘s go. I‘ll spring for beers later,‖ Andras said.
Ned followed behind him.
―It‘s hard for anybody to stay mad at Andras,‖ Jazzy whispered to the other women at the fire.
(Extra Space)
After the newcomers were moved in and Katherine had had enough time to conceal her horror at
her new surroundings, they all returned to the bonfire, where Bebe and the others were toasting
marshmallows on sticks.
Forrest picked up his guitar and began strumming absently.
―Let‘s sing Kumbaya!‖ Cynthia shouted, suddenly inspired.
A chorus of wails ensued.
―What‘s wrong with it?‖ Cynthia asked belligerently.
Bebe ignored her. ―Hey, I‘ve got something,‖ she said. Then, bending over and snapping her
fingers in a leisurely, street-corner rhythm, she began to sing the familiar doo-wop opening of the
Temptations‘ ―My Girl‖. Ned was the first to join her, a smooth baritone.
―I can‘t believe I‘m here,‖ Katherine whispered to Mo. ―I feel like a kid.‖
Mo smiled and sang, her strong alto voice adding another dimension to the tune. Henya entered
next, creating spontaneous, intricate harmonies while Forrest‘s pure tenor soared into the melody in a
magnificent falsetto. Even Katherine gave in to the moment, contributing a lovely, sandy soprano. To
everyone‘s surprise, Andras was able to produce an astonishing variety of mouth sounds that underlay the
music perfectly. Only Cynthia, with her loud but tuneless voice, threatened to destroy the moment until
Jazzy provided her with a rattling calabash gourd which demanded all of Cynthia‘s attention.
Jazzy herself did not sing, but danced around the outside of the circle, her movements fluid and
exciting, sometimes comic, sometimes almost carnal, always interesting. She was a natural dancer, Mo
thought. Jazzy‘s abrasive speech conveyed nothing of who she really was. To know the woman, she had to
be seen in motion.
(Extra Space)
Elsie watched from her kitchen window, half hypnotized by Jazzy‘s sinuous, smoke-like
movements. From her outsider‘s vantage point, it looked as if a fairy were blessing the circle.
Niall could have cooked for the whole lot of them with no trouble, she thought. She got up from
the table with difficulty and walked to the coat closet, where she kept Niall‘s jacket. It was of Donegal
tweed, purchased in Ireland ten years before. It had been the first time either of them had been outside the
country, their first time in an airplane. Niall had paid more than a hundred dollars for this jacket.
It still smelled of him. Not sweet, but familiar, like Niall himself. Or at least the Niall that had
been. The old man in the home who no longer recognized her had not even smelled right.
Maybe she ought to give him an article of her own clothing, Elsie thought, unconsciously holding
the jacket against her face. To smell. Maybe then he would remember.
I got sunshine on a cloudy day
The lyrics of the song came to her on the cool spring breeze.
And when it’s cold outside
I’ve got the month of May...
Chapter Thirteen
Elsie
Niall Nolan died the following week.
The funeral was held in the chapel of the nursing home where he had spent the final months of his
life. All of the residents of Elysian Fields attended, Bebe in a miniskirt, Cynthia wearing a cowboy hat and
Earth shoes, Katherine in silk Eileen Fisher, and Jazzy sporting an Indian sari covered with mirrors. Three
black swan feathers were placed artfully in her hair. Andras wore his own hair in a long braid. As a symbol
of mourning, he wore a black armband. There was a stencil of a zebra on it, but he kept that side on the
inside of his sleeve. Ned wore a black suit, as did Mo. Neither had worn their garments since the last time
they had attended funerals. Forrest wore the only jacket he owned, a camel hair blazer with elbow patches.
Henya, who wore a black skirt and white blouse, was repeatedly mistaken for a maid by the residents.
Niall was dressed in his Donegal tweed sportcoat. His casket lay in front of a huge display of red
roses crafted into the shape of a heart shot through with a lightning bolt sparkling with glitter.
Bebe whooped.
―Quiet!‖ Cynthia whispered as the group entered the chapel.
―It‘s a broken heart!‖ Bebe was grinning. ―Love it!‖
―What‘s that on his chest?‖ Ned wondered aloud.
They approached the coffin in a group. ―Pecan tassies,‖ Henya said.
Indeed, Niall the caterer‘s body had been positioned so that his hands appeared to be holding a
tray of pastries to serve both as a symbol of the man‘s profession and an offering of hospitality.
Bebe shrieked with laughter and had to be subdued. Ned made a gesture toward the corpse to Mo.
―After you,‖ he said. Mo inhaled sharply.
―Well, I‘m not proud,‖ Andras said, popping one of the little pies into his mouth. A moment later,
he was looking wildly around the room. He finally found a potted plant near the doorway where Bebe
was still weeping with silent laughter. He spat the morsel into the soil of the plant and tried to cover it
over. ―Man, that tastes like sh—‖
At that moment, Elsie sailed past, a vision in black lace. ―Come for the food, have you,‖ the
widow rasped out of the corner of her mouth. ―I know your kind.‖
Bebe plastered herself against the wall, shaking with laughter.
(Extra Space)
Actually, a number of unsuspecting people actually had come for the food. Elsie had ensured a
good turnout at her husband‘s funeral by spreading the word that Niall Nolan had been a reknown chef, and
that a great feast would be served in his honor after the service.
They came in droves, frail white-haired wraiths, invalids in wheelchairs, an army of determined
mourners moving in metal walkers. Some had invited their families for the event. One particularly popular
matriarch boasted twenty-two friends and relatives, all come from world outside the nursing home to
partake of Elsie Nolan‘s cooking.
The service was packed to the walls. No one present had ever seen Elsie so happy. She led the
line of visitors toward the buffet tables, where all the food that Elsie had prepared single-handedly during
the three days since Niall‘s death had been laid out.
―These are all Mr. Nolan‘s favorite recipes, made exactly the way he would have prepared them,‖
Elsie announced, spreading her arms over the oceans of noodle pudding, stuffed cabbage, potatoes with
cabbage, cabbage and noodles, creamed corn, boiled chicken wings, noodle-and-cabbage soup, and sugar
cookies.
―Everything‘s white,‖ Katherine, who avoided white food, observed.
―And made of cabbage,‖ Ned added.
―Maybe that‘s what was wrong with that other thing I ate,‖ Andras said.
―Ah, the aroma,‖ Bebe taunted. ―Cyn, I think the cabbage soup is calling your name.‖
Cynthia shook her head. ―If it‘s not macrobiotic, it doesn‘t go into my body,‖ she said.
―Er... me, too,‖ Ned said.
Henya smiled uncertainly. ―I‘ve got to get to St. Peter‘s,‖ she said. ―I promised I‘d do the books.‖
She blushed. ―Since I‘m still in town.‖ She cast a desperate glance at Mo, who was busy trying to disguise
her dismay at Elsie‘s horrific buffet.
―Lucky dog.‖
―Well, I‘ll give it a try,‖ Forrest said affably. He filled his plate and dug in. ―Good God,‖ he said
after one bite. ―It‘s almost not possible for anything to taste this bad.‖
Apparently another of the mourners agreed with him. A paper plate filled with noodle pudding
went flying overhead. Nearby, an elderly man was lifting his walker into the air. ―This is slop!‖ he
shouted.
―Sometimes people suffering from dementia get agitated,‖ Henya explained. She went over to the
man and tried to calm him down, but by then the avalanche had already begun to fall. A great commotion
came over the room as the expectant seniors began to complain vociferously.
―Hey, what do you expect from an Irish caterer?‖ Bebe said.
Jazzy sniffed at Forrest‘s plate. ―At least there isn‘t any garlic,‖ she said.
At that moment Elsie was passing by on her way to the demented man with the walker. She
turned her head haughtily toward the group. ―Never has a whiff of garlic marred one of my Niall‘s dishes,‖
she pronounced.
―Too bad,‖ Bebe said. ―It might have helped.‖
―Eeew,‖ Jazzy said.
By this time the complaints had become a din. Within earshot of Elsie, a young man shouted that
the nursing home had played a cruel trick on his grandmother. Someone else talked about suing.
―What‘s this shit made of, dog?‖ one of the staff sniggered.
―Dog shit,‖ Andras said, sharing a laugh with the staff member until he spotted Elsie at his elbow.
―I meant the fake dog shit,‖ he amended somberly.
Elsie‘s lip trembled. ―I made it just the way he did,‖ she sputtered.
―No doubt,‖ Bebe commented.
Elsie burst into tears. Mo waved Bebe away. Henya, who had spotted Elsie‘s distress, left the
agitated man to return to the group.
―Everything‘s fine,‖ she said, putting her arm around Elsie. ―I thought the food was delicious.‖
Elsie looked up at her as if she were a child seeking approval. ―Did you really?‖
―Yes,‖ Henya said brightly. ―Well, very good, anyway.‖
Andras coughed.
―Are you lying?‖ Elsie asked. ―You can tell me the truth.‖ She looked to the group.
―Okay,‖ Cynthia said. ―It was inedible.‖
―Who asked you?‖ Elsie bullied.
―You did. Just now. You said –‖
―It was edible,‖ Henya said.
―How would you know?‖ Cynthia groused. ―You didn‘t even taste it.‖
Elsie wailed.
―Maybe we ought to go home, Elsie,‖ Mo offered, unobtrusively taking her away from Henya.
(Extra Space)
Elsie wept all the way back to Elysian Fields.
(Extra Space)
I need Vincan/early East Balkan names, Mo wrote.
Araiama‘s disciples had to be called something, if only to distinguish one from the other on the
page. A good name was best. A good name conveyed something of the character‘s essence. Araiama, for
instance, held the symmetry of having an ―a‖ for every other letter. It began and ended with A, Alpha. The
One. The Source.
Alpha. I could call them by Greek letters until I get some sense of what the language sounded like.
I mean, there’s a big difference between, say, Rena and Ike-wan. Not to mention English meanings, like
Rota or Roma or Ratto. But then, how would anyone know what a non-written language sounded like?
―What the hell am I doing?‖ Mo wondered aloud.
How do you know that Araiama is an East Balkan name?
She sat back in her chair. She had never questioned Araiama‘s name. It had just come to her, full
blown as Athena springing from the forehead of Zeus. Araiama was right. Whatever the language, the
priestess‘s name would be Araiama.
So. What was I saying? Alpha. Yes. The bossy disciple can be Alpha. Competent, strong,
dominant, but with a secret weakness. And Beta can be the dithering, foolish one. Maybe she has an
offensive voice, strident as broken glass. If she were alive today, she’d be dressed in Birkinstocks and an
Indian headband. Idealistic, though, and vulnerable because of that. Gamma would be the pretty one, vain
and shallow and self-centered, a child who must always remain a child. Think Amy in Little Women…
―No, no.‖ Mo struck the last sentence. She would only see Elizabeth Taylor if she thought of
Amy, and the voice would be too close to Beta‘s.
Delta would be elegant and perfectionistic; of course, she would be the first to have sex. Epsilon,
self-negating and fearful of life. And Zeta, rigid and rule-bound, trying to break away from a strict
upbringing. Her creativity is stymied by her fear of being reprimanded by the ghosts of the past, but it
comes out through some interaction with another character. Someone unlikely, such as Gamma or
Epsilon.
She sat back and smiled. Outside, life at the trailer park ground on. Cynthia was grilling tofu over
the firepit. The three men and Bebe were nailing boards onto the side of the abandoned trailer which
Katherine and Forrest had made their temporary home. Katherine was not in sight. She was doubtless
leafing through old copies of House and Garden, and contemplating suicide. And Henya… Henya was
hiding. She had been hiding for days, ever since the date of her planned departure for Yellowstone had
come and gone. It seemed that Henya‘s leap of faith into the unknown had only taken her as far as Elysian
Fields.
They’re like the people here, Mo wrote.
No, she answered herself. They’re all like you.
She laughed. Well, of course, After all, you know what Flaubert said.
She was about to erase the line when she typed instead, What did Flaubert say?
She frowned. That was an odd thing. Why would she ask herself a question she already knew the
answer to?
Ah, well. Writing was not a science, after all. It was the process of teasing things out of one‘s
subconscious. And not just ideas. Indeed, most ideas developed enough to support a novel were already
well into the conscious stage. But other things came unbidden and lovely from the well of the writer‘s
unknown self: Associations, relationships, odd loves and furies. And so Mo kept a running record of
conversations with herself. After all, it all could be easily deleted.
Flaubert said, ―Madame Bovary, c’est moi,‖ Mo wrote. ―Say, who’s asking, anyway?‖
―I am,‖ came a voice behind her.
Gasping, Mo spun around in her chair.
Beside the window, so near the draperies that her green gown almost blended in with them, stood
a tall, statuesque woman of an age and nationality that could only be described as indeterminate. Her dovegray eyes were long and narrow, slitted beneath high cheekbones, their depths hidden in the shadow where
she stood. She had a proud nose, high-bridged, prominent, the nose of a stage actress, perhaps, or of a
European aristocrat of ancient bloodline. Below it, her lips, wide, but tight and controlled, the mouth of an
abbess. Her stark white hair was pulled severely back from her face, except for a loose fringe that curled
around her hairline, lending an incongruously pretty, almost girlish aspect to the imperious face. Her
shoulders were broad, their bones prominent, exposed in the dress; her hands, long, expressive.
―Who...‖ Mo swallowed, her arms shaky as she pulled herself to a standing position. ―Who are...‖
At that moment a loud banging at the front door caused her heart to jump.
―Mo!‖ A screeching vocal noise that could only belong to Cynthia Ross. ―Mo, hurry!‖
She headed for the door. At the threshold of her office, she looked back toward the windows.
The woman was gone.
(Extra Space)
―It‘s Elsie,‖ Cynthia said. ―She‘s trying to kill herself or something.‖
―What?‖ Mo took off at a trot. Cynthia kept pace beside her.
―I just looked in her window. She was making noise, crying, and I wanted to see if she was all
right.‖
―And?‖
―And she‘s covered with blood. Bebe‘s with her now. She says we don‘t need an ambulance, but I
don‘t know. Even if she‘s not bleeding to death, she may have some depression issues.‖
Mo tried not to be annoyed. Depression issues, she thought as she took in the wreckage of Elsie‘s
trailer. Pots and pans half filled with congealed food were everywhere. There were dishes on the floor, and
something that looked like feces on the rug in front of the television.
Elsie herself was an even worse sight. Blood, some of it already dried, ran down her arms and
stained the sides of the lace dress she had worn to her husband‘s funeral.
―Elsie,‖ Mo said gently, holding out her hands to her.
―No, it‘s no use,‖ Elsie moaned. ―Forget me. It‘s all over. There‘s nothing left for me in this life.‖
Bebe came out of the bathroom. ―What a pigsty,‖ she said. ―How the hell did dogshit get in here,
Elsie?‖
―You!‖ Elsie turned on her.
―You‘re bringing in that old stray mutt, aren‘t you! There‘re probably fleas in your bed.‖
―Well, you‘ll never find out, will you, Lesbo?‖
―Oh, like I‘d want to curl up with you, you smelly old turnip.‖
―Just get the hell out before I throw you out!‖
―That‘ll be a real hardship,‖ Bebe countered. ―It‘s so pleasant in here, I just want to hang out all
day.‖
―Bebe, please,‖ Mo said.
―Relax,‖ she said, picking up the dog droppings in a paper towel and throwing it outside.
―Nothing‘s wrong with her. She does this all the time.‖
Mo blinked.
―Here. Look at this.‖ Bebe brandished a ten-inch-long chef‘s knife. ―The weapon.‖ She pulled the
blade across her own forearm, with no effect. ―Last year she told everyone she‘d overdosed. Turned out to
be four aspirin.‖
―Aspirin can kill you,‖ Elsie said defensively.
―So can your cooking. You should have tried some of your yummy cabbage. You‘d be in the
Emergency Room by now.‖
Elsie shrieked.
―Before that it was running in front of cars. She‘d wait for someone to drive past, and then zing
out in front of them. Nothing ever happened—you can‘t drive faster than five miles an hour here, anyway
because of the speedbumps, but it was damned annoying. Christ, look at this thing.‖ Bebe ran her finger
along the blade edge of the knife. ―She must have been sawing away for a hour to get as much blood as she
did.‖
Elsie blubbered. Mo embraced her. Elsie pushed her away. She spat at Bebe.
―Drama queen,‖ Bebe said.
―Homo.‖
―Oh, dear.‖ There was someone new in the fetid trailer. It was Henya, still in her black and white
mourning outfit, surveying the condition of Elsie‘s living quarters.
―Who are you?‖ Elsie said with a suspicious pout.
―My name is Henrietta,‖ she said, not moving from the doorway. ―My friends call me Henya. I
live here …‖ She cast a quick look in Mo‘s direction. ―That is, I‘m spending part of my vacation here in
Elysian Fields.‖
Elsie‘s eyes narrowed. ―Are you some kind of....‖ Her gaze darted around the trailer. ―... dark
person?‖
―I‘m getting out of here,‖ Bebe said, disgusted. ―Look, Mo, you want me to call the cops? They
can haul her away.‖
―I don‘t think we need the police,‖ Henya said firmly. Slowly she walked to Elsie and knelt down
so that her eyes were at the same level as the older woman‘s. ―I‘m a nurse,‖ she said. ―Would you like me
to help you?‖
Elsie‘s hands, folded, their fingers white with tension, trembled. Her eyes welled with tears. ―Can
you?‖
―Yes,‖ Henya answered without equivocation. ―We‘ll start by getting you cleaned up and
comfortable. How‘s that?‖
Elsie nodded dumbly, like a sleepy child being led by the hand to bed.
―Let me help,‖ Mo said, but Henya shook her head. Her eyes never left Elsie‘s. ―We‘ll be fine
here,‖ she said, then remained silent until Mo and Bebe were both gone and the door closed behind them.
(Extra Space)
Elsie submitted to Henya‘s ministrations without complaint. The younger woman washed the
blood off her arms, bandaged the superficial cuts that scored them, took off her lace dress, and got her into
a loose cotton nightgown. ―Would you like a cup of tea?‖ she asked.
Elsie looked up, the corners of her mouth twisted downward in a caricature of a frown. ―Why are
you doing this?‖ she croaked, her eyes narrowing.
Henya gave her a level look. ―I‘m not going to rob you, if that‘s what you‘re worried about,‖ she
said.
Elsie snorted. ―You people are too sensitive.‖
―Is that it,‖ Henya said.
―Well, go ahead. Take what you want. Take everything. I got nothing anyway. I won‘t live long.‖
―Long enough to have a cup of tea?‖ Henya offered.
Elsie gave her a sidelong glance with the barest hint of a smile. ―Maybe that long,‖ she said.
―Constant Comment. Use the Constant Comment. In the flowered canister.‖
Henya found the canister, thick and sticky with grease and dust. Inside were four individually
wrapped tea bags. ―High society tea,‖ Henya said.
―You can get two cups out of one bag.‖
Henya smiled. ―My mama used to say that. She never allowed us to waste anything.‖
―She was smart.‖
Henya didn‘t answer.
Elsie drank her tea in bed, with Henya sitting at the foot.
―Delicious,‖ Henya said.
Elsie beamed. ―This was Niall‘s favorite. Expensive?‖ She whistled. ―You wouldn‘t believe. But
the best. Get me a cigarette.‖
―No.‖
―Bitch. I‘ll get it myself.‖
―Then I‘ll leave,‖ Henya said.
Elsie gave her a murderous stare, but said nothing. And she did not seek out the ever-present pack
of Pall Malls.
They drank their tea in silence. It was a quality of Henya‘s that sometimes made people
uncomfortable. She had little sense of the rhythm of conversation. When someone spoke, she did not
immediately respond, but waited instead until she was certain that whoever she was talking with was
finished. As a result, conversations with Henya were filled with long gaps of silence.
Sometimes people got so uncomfortable with these gaps that they continued to speak just to avoid
the silences, going on and on until they had confessed the deepest secrets of their souls. Most people came
away from her feeling angry, guilty, foolish, or drained.
Only those who needed to be listened to were not put off by her conversational naivete. The sick,
the old, the dying... These found Henya‘s attentive silence to be a greater comfort than morphine.
―Was it really that bad?‖ Elsie asked at last. ―The lunch?‖
Henya thought.
―Those old coots in that home don‘t know nothing about cooking,‖ Elsie went on. ―They just like
to complain.‖
Henya nodded.
―They wouldn‘t know a stuffed cabbage from a stuffed pepper.‖ She shifted her position in bed.
―Well, what do you think? Not that I care.‖
Henya shrugged.
―I followed Niall‘s recipes. To the letter.‖
Henya took Elsie‘s empty cup.
―The recipes were exact. That was just the way Niall cooked.‖ She looked almost pleadingly into
Henya‘s eyes. Then she looked away, sighing. ―Oh, what the hell, the food always did taste like shit,‖ she
said.
Henya burst out laughing.
―It did. Looked like cardboard, tasted like dirty shorts.‖
The two of them howled. ―I kept my mouth shut, because he kept telling me he was a professional
chef and he knew what tasted good. After a while I even got used to it. I thought I was the only one who
didn‘t like it. But now I know. It was shit.‖
―How did you stay in business?‖ Henya asked.
Elsie shook her head. ―It wasn‘t easy. Mostly we just bid lower than everybody else. And the
places we catered for, they was never real fancy. We made beer food, you know, sausage and peppers...
well, you saw. Maybe the beer made them forget what they were eating.‖
They laughed until Elsie had to wipe her eyes on her nightgown. ―What‘s your name again?‖ she
asked. ―Henny?‖
―Henya.‖
―Come here, Henny Penny.‖ She patted the spot beside her. ―Could you sit here next to me for a
minute?‖
Henya was still for some time. ―All right,‖ she said at last. ―But before I do, is there anyone you‘d
like me to call?‖
―My son,‖ Elsie said. ―He‘d want to know that I was killing myself.‖
Henya said nothing.
―From grief.‖
―I understand,‖ Henya said. ―What‘s the number?‖
Elsie gave it to her. ―Not that he‘ll care.‖
Henya found the telephone. Its wire had been cut. ―Why did you do this?‖ she asked, holding up
the cord.
―I don‘t know.‖
Henya used her cell phone to call the number. A woman‘s recorded voice answered. ―Do you
want me to leave a message?‖
―Tell him I‘m dying.‖
―Charlie, this is Henrietta Yauch, a friend of your mother‘s. She had a small accident and wants to
see you.‖ She left her own cell phone number. ―I asked him to come tomorrow, so that you can rest
tonight,‖ she said after she‘d hung up.
―I could be dead by tomorrow.‖
―We all could,‖ Henya agreed.
―Did that girl answer?‖
―No one answered. But there was a woman‘s voice on the answering machine. It said I‘d reached
Naomi and Charlie.‖
―Huh! Put her own name first. That figures.‖ Pause. ―Thinks she‘s hot stuff, that one.‖ Pause.
―Works for the newspaper. Been to college, Miss Priss.‖ Long pause. ―Thinks she‘s too good for my
Charlie. And me, of course.‖
Pause.
―Why don‘t you say something?‖ Her face was twisted into Elsie‘s Mean Old Lady mask again.
―Is that why you cut your wrists?‖ Henya asked. ―To make your son come back to you?‖
Elsie inhaled sharply. Her eyes widened, and she backed up against the headboard. ―No!‖
―‘Cause if it is, you‘ve got to change your way of dealing with life, you understand, Elsie? Life
hurts bad enough without you making it worse.‖
Elsie blinked in shock. It was the longest sentence Henya had spoken since she arrived. ―What do
you know,‖ she said at last.
―I know,‖ Henya said. She crawled up the bed and propped herself on a pillow beside Elsie.
Elsie glowered at her. Then she did it again, in case Henya had missed it. Then she patted Henya‘s
hand. Finally, she rested her head on Henya‘s shoulder. ―Is this all right?‖ she asked.
―It‘s fine,‖ Henya said, stroking the old woman‘s dry hair.
Henya‘s mother would sometimes lay her head on her daughter‘s shoulder in just that way. But
then, her mother might just as easily put a cigarette butt out on Henya‘s face. Sometimes she seemed to
forget who her daughter was. She would leap up, glaring, and then run for the butcher knife in the kitchen
drawer, or for the gun under her bed, even though Henya checked every day to make sure there were no
bullets.
Once, before she learned to check for the bullets, her mother had come into the living room where
Henya had been reading a school assignment and waved the gun in her direction. Henya could tell that her
mother had been drinking, that she was in fact very drunk, barely able to stand.
―Ain‘t no good in this life,‖ she said, trying to plant her feet to keep from weaving. ―You brought
me nothing but trouble. If it wasn‘t for you, I‘d be dancing now, do you hear me?‖ She took the gun in
both hands. ―I asked you, DO YOU HEAR ME?‖
―Yes, Mama,‖ Henrietta had answered in a whisper.
She had been nine years old.
Elsie snorted awake, blinking, frightened. ―Oh,‖ she said. ―Must have dozed off.‖
―Good,‖ Henya said.
―I wish I could take out my teeth.‖ There was the little girl look again, seeking permission.
Henya held out her hand.
―You don‘t mind?‖
Henya shook her head.
The old woman removed both plates and wiped them on her nightgown before placing them
reverently into Henya‘s open palm. ―I‘m going to bake you a cake,‖ she said.
Chapter Fourteen
Mo
Alpha
Moonrise (Momo)
organization
(Bebe)
Beta
Black Swan
builder
(Cynthia)
Gamma Willow
dancer
(Jazzy)
Delta
musician
(Katherine)
Epsilon Poppy
healer
(Henya)
Zeta
cook
(Elsie)
Damiana
Rowan
―There,‖ Mo said. The acolytes now had real names and faces. Once she realized that they didn‘t
have to be East Balkan names, it was easy. And then, to infuse them with personalities of some kind, she
had simply borrowed from her neighbors. It hadn‘t been necessary to give a lot of thought to these
characters, since they were all going to be killed off in the next chapter or two. But the reader had to care
about them, at least to the point of knowing their names. Otherwise their deaths would carry no emotional
impact. Araiama could moan and beat her breasts till kingdom come about how much she missed her
students, but that wouldn‘t matter a fig if the reader hadn‘t felt some connection with them.
But to understand these characters, Mo had had to see their prototypes, her fellow trailer park
residents, in a different light. She‘d had to imagine them young, strip away their disappointments and their
coping mechanisms, lift the lies that made their lives bearable. Moonrise was Bebe before she became a
Vogue cover girl. Elsie had had a life before she‘d met Niall Nolan. That was what Mo would explore
within the pages of The 1000 Lives of Araiama Mari. That was Mo‘s task: to wash these real people clean
of their experiences and endow them with new ones.
She was herself Mari, the creator, transforming the gray cloth of reality into brocade.
The trouble was, reality didn‘t cease to exist when Mo constructed her alternative to it.
She pictured her life as a room. Other people had rooms, too, all of them filled with the treasures
of their souls. Some of those rooms were magnificent, with tapestries on the walls and antique furniture and
portraits of ancestors and furniture piled high with souvenirs and photographs. Her own, in contrast, the
writer‘s room, was a barren space, cement floors littered with cobwebs and a few charred sticks from the
bridges she‘d burned.
This room housed only one object, a bottle of bubble juice from which she fashioned a hundred
(well, sixteen, so far, Mo had only written sixteen books) other rooms. Each bubble was beautiful in its
way, iridescent, unique. Each made perfect sense. Each was a pleasure to behold. And for a time, Mo –
Mari now, the creator – had lived inside each one, luxuriating in its particular essence, breathing in its
scent, its time, its version of truth.
And then the book would be finished, the joyous words The End typed on the last page, and Mo‘s
heart would leap with relief and satisfaction. She would wash her hair, and drink champagne, and make
dates to see all the friends she had ignored during her time in the bubble she‘d blown, the Land of the Lotus
Eaters.
But then, invariably, after the champagne had gone flat and the telephone stopped ringing, she
would find herself back in the dank gray room of her life, her real life, echoing with silence, when she
realized, once again, that none of it was real.
But she would not have to deal with that moment for some time. For now, she was Snake Finder,
standing beneath a waterfall, her arms laden with the coiling, dancing bodies of the holy snakes who had
come to welcome her to their land.
(Extra Space)
By the time Charlie Nolan arrived later that morning, Elsie‘s trailer had been tidied up and cleaned
immaculately.
―Whoa,‖ he said as he opened the door.
Mo, heading out for her morning walk, caught sight of him and rushed over. ―Is something
wrong?‖ she asked.
―This is Elsie Nolan‘s trailer, isn‘t it?‖
―Yes. Are you her son?‖
―I‘m not sure anymore. My mom‘s kitchen never looked like this.‖ He held open the door.
―Look.‖
Mo peered inside. ―Henya must have cleaned it,‖ she said, smiling. ―Your mother has some kind
friends.‖
―Yeah,‖ he said. ―She was telling me about them.‖
―Oh. She called you?‖
―Fourteen times. That‘s not counting the messages she left while I was out.‖
―She‘s all right, isn‘t she?‖ Mo asked.
―Oh, she‘s fine. After keeping me up on the phone all night, she‘s asleep.‖ He smiled. It was a
pretty smile, Mo thought, his teeth as white as a girl‘s, his lips still filled with the juices of youth. ―Say,
you‘re Mo Owens, aren‘t you?‖
―That‘s me.‖
Shyly he pushed his hair out of his eyes. ―I‘ve read a lot of your books. Well, sixteen.‖
―I‘ve only written sixteen.‖
―Then I guess I‘ve read them all.‖ He shuffled his feet. ―Charlie Nolan,‖ he said, extending his
hand. ―I went to a writing conference where you were supposed to be giving a workshop.‖
―Supposed to?‖
―In Atlanta, about a year and a half ago. You didn‘t show up.‖
―Oh. I‘m sorry.‖
He shrugged. ―You probably got busy.‖
Right, she thought. Busy. A year and a half ago she was busy wandering through the hospital
psych ward screaming at the top of her lungs until she got pumped full of Thorazine. It occurred to her
that in that respect she had a lot in common with Elsie. ―Some things came up,‖ she said, trying not to
choke on her own spittle. ―Are you a writer?‖ That usually got them started.
―Not really. Just lyrics for songs. I play guitar in a couple of bands around town.‖
Charlie was a big strapping man with clean, shiny brown hair streaked with sun blond that curled
down his back. He looked like a biker, Mo thought. But oddly wholesome And young. Well, youngish.
Thirty. Young for her.
―That‘s what poets do these days,‖ she said. ―They write songs.‖
They stood in silence for a moment too long. ―Well, I‘m happy to have met you,‖ Mo said at last.
―I‘ll try to find Elsie. She‘ll be glad you‘ve come.‖
Charlie nodded. He was blushing.
(Extra Space)
Crazy, Mo told herself, picking up her pace. How old was he? Thirty, that‘s right. Good God.
It had just been too long since she‘d been with a man. Five years since the divorce, and quite a
while before that. Years, really, during which Mo knew that Desmond was seeing someone else, but didn‘t
allow herself to think the actual words, he’s having an affair, as if by refusing to acknowledge her
suspicions, she could negate the reality of it.
Stop it. She ran harder. Sweat ran into her eyes. She felt exhilarated, as if the running and the
sweating were proof that she was still fit, still young enough to attract a man. Even a young man. If she
wanted to.
―Oh, for Christ‘s sake.‖ She said it aloud, stopping, bending over, hearing her heart thumping as
she watched the sweat drop onto the dirt trail. If you were in shape, she thought, you wouldn’t even be
sweating, you moron.
She was surprised at how easy it was to picture herself as young. Maybe it was because women
look in the mirror more often when they‘re young, she reasoned. The image is pleasing, and so it becomes
emblazoned in their minds. In her dreams, Mo still saw herself as twenty-five and new to the world. Then
came morning, and the dismay of recognizing the middle-aged woman in the mirror as herself. But that
can’t be me, a part of her would object each time.
She had always been the youngest one at the party, the intellectual with legs, the pretty young
bride whom Desmond had been lucky to get. Not the left-behind wife. Not the pathetic woman with dyed
hair and a serious bra whose worst fear was that a man would think she was trolling after him.
She walked back to the cottage, limping slightly.
―Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?‖ The tall woman who had appeared out of nowhere the other
day was sitting ramrod straight on Mo‘s Queen Anne chair. It had been hopelessly out of place in the rustic
cabin, but now seemed like the perfect setting for this regal apparition.
Mo backed up against the wall. She struck a bookcase with her shoulder. It shuddered.
She‘d forgotten the woman. It had only been a figment of her imagination anyway, she thought
vaguely.
What are you thinking? She’s a figment now.
―Why are you here?‖ Mo asked in a croak.
―I‘m your mirror,‖ the woman said imperiously. ―The one you don‘t want to look into.‖
Mo was seized with the sudden urge to have her first cigarette in twenty years. She chewed her
fingernails instead.
―Lovely hands,‖ the woman commented dryly.
―Who are you?‖ Mo squeaked.
The woman cast her gaze heavenward and sighed. ―I suppose you have no idea. And that you‘ve
been caught utterly off guard. After all, I simply can‘t exist, so I don‘t. Go ahead, Mari. Close your eyes
and shake your head, or whatever it is you make your characters do to show that they don‘t believe their
eyes.‖
Mo‘s confusion was momentarily replaced by annoyance. She moved away from the bookcase and
sat on the rose-colored velvet sofa that had occupied space in her office for most of her adult life.
―How much time have you spent sleeping on that?‖
Mo‘s jaw clenched. That was one of her few real secrets.
―Oh, I know about that.‖ The woman laughed. ―You run away by sleeping. When you know
you‘re writing lies, you sleep. And you hope that when you wake up, it will be too late to go on writing.
I‘ve always wondered why you didn‘t just tell the truth.‖
Mo felt her cheeks redden. ―That isn‘t always possible. I write fiction.‖
The woman snorted. ―You write nonsense. Atlantis. King Arthur. The Goddess.‖ Her gaze bore
into Mo‘s. ―What on earth made you think you know anything about the Goddess?‖
Mo shrugged. ―I don‘t know anything about Atlantis, either. But the story wasn‘t about Atlantis.
It was about people.‖
―About yourself?‖
―Sort of, yes,‖ Mo said, taking a step back from the woman. ―You‘re Araiama, aren‘t you,‖ she
said. ―You‘re the character I invented.‖ She smiled and crossed her arms over her chest. ―And I‘m having
this conversation with myself.‖
The woman turned away from her, exhibiting her aristocratic profile. ―You are presumptuous.‖
Mo laughed. ―My therapist would love this.‖
―What about Flaubert?‖ Araiama asked.
―What?‖
―Madame Bovary...‖
―C‘est moi,‖ Mo finished, moving to her desk and turning on her computer.
―Exactly.‖
Mo laughed. ―Meaning what?‖
―Meaning you and I are the same.‖
Mo typed what the woman had said. ―Actually, no,‖ she answered. ―Flaubert didn‘t mean that he
himself was a weak-willed, dependent housewife. He only meant that he knew how such a person would
feel. He made her real through his own senses and experiences.‖
―Yes?‖ Araiama seemed unconvinced.
―It‘s like what Stanislavsky wrote, that you don‘t need to have been to the South Pole to play
Admiral Byrd. You only need to have been cold.‖
Araiama shrugged. ―Who is to say he wasn‘t Admiral Byrd?‖
―Who, Stanislavsky?‖ Mo thought for a moment. ―That‘s interesting. You‘re saying that to create
you, I have to become you, at least for a time. Is that right?‖
The older woman shrugged. ―You think too much.‖
Mo looked at her computer screen. ―Tell me your story,‖ she said.
Araiama sat silently.
―Tell me.‖‘
―Just like that? On demand, for nothing?‖
―Would you like something in exchange?‖
The woman‘s face betrayed the barest hint of a smile, so subtle that the effect was one of health
rather than greed. She glowed.
―What, Araiama?‖ Mo asked very softly, very slowly. ―What can I give you to make you speak to
me?‖
Araiama gazed into her eyes. ―Your trust,‖ she said. ―First, you must believe what I tell you. All
that I tell you.‖
Mo considered, feeling wonderful, coddled, surrendering to the sensation of drifting into the
unique reality of her work. She was Alice in Wonderland again, going down the rabbit hole. Only this time
she was not entering the alien nightmare dimension of reality, where Desmond‘s betrayal had once sent her,
screaming and terrified, but instead she was going into the soft-walled, easy place where stories emerged
out of the soup of random experience. This was where she was most comfortable, here at the point at which
conscious thought stopped, replaced by what scientists called the alpha state.
Mo thought of it as flying.
At times during the writing of almost every book, she could feel herself taking off, enduring
tremendous and terrible G-forces as the words passed through her, first like shards of broken glass, painful,
heavy as lead, and then lightening, speeding up, warping out of time. It was happening now, her mind
reaching the critical velocity at which point Desmond Owens and his mistress—or perhaps wife by now, it
didn‘t matter anymore—ceased to exist, and the only story in her consciousness was Araiama‘s.
―Talk to me,‖ she said.
Chapter Fifteen
Araiama
They all died.
They had come to me, one by one, the best their villages had to offer, to learn from the whitehaired priestess who had brought her people from across the world to Mari’s own land.
It was green land, bountiful with food and fragrant with flowers, and near enough to the sea to
reap its bounty every day. When my people first arrived more than thirty years earlier, they had been
welcomed by the other villages.
―Mari has sent you,‖ these others told us.
But the elders of my tribe knew this, just as they knew that Snake Finder was the Goddess’
chosen one, and that Great Mari had called them all to this place of plenty.
What they had not known was that already the northern tribesmen known to some as Keltoi, or
barbarians, huge, filthy men who dyed their hair with lime to lighten it to a frightening yellow and sifted
their food through the long mustaches that curled over their lips to their chins, had begun to raid the
villages of Mari’s paradise.
With their crude weapons, axes made of stone and leather, or daggers of shiny metal, the
Keltoi went into battle raging and naked, taking whatever they wanted, sometimes burning whole
villages.
Some of our people were dismayed. They had walked on weary legs for nearly two years to
escape invaders into their old land. This land, Mari’s land, was to have been better. But there will
always be men eager to steal and kill; that is simply the way of human life. The important thing to
remember was that the gods did not look kindly on them.
Our sanctuary lay with Mari, creator of the sea, the most ancient of the ancient ones. Mari
would watch over our people. I knew this. Mari would show her Priestess what to do.
(Extra Space)
When I was a young girl, new to the Goddess’ service, there was talk about unspeakable
desecrations of sacred things in distant lands – even of men who had formed cults of god-worshippers
who had replaced images of the Goddess with statues of male gods, complete with manly genitals – but
those stories were so far removed from our own lives that they seemed more like fairy stories than
reports of actual occurrences.
―Mari cannot die,‖ the elder priestesses assured me.
Of course they were right, for Mari was more than just a goddess. There were hundreds of
goddesses, of fertility and lust and creativity and power, goddesses to bring clarity or vengeance, to
remove curses, to cure the sickness of childbed, to bring peace to the dead. But Great Mari was
beyond all those boundaries. Mari was the sea herself, origin of all things, She from whom even the
earth had sprung. Mari would endure forever.
Her statue, massive in ancient pitted stone, had dominated the village of my birth. Too large to
move, the image of the Goddess had remained behind when we left. Before the exodus, we covered her
with offerings, with plants and food and our personal treasures, and prayers that Mari not forget us as
we made our pilgrimage to her own faraway land.
And when we arrived, the first thing we did, even before we built our own dwellings, was to
erect a monument to her, a large standing stone around which we placed our offerings so that she would
know us when we prayed. This monument was Mari’s home in our village, our protection against evil.
But even as the great rock settled into the green earth of our new land, the yellow-haired
warriors from across the plain were watching us with greedy eyes.
(Extra Space)
Within the first year after the completion of the temple, people from settlements days away
had learned about the snake woman from a far country, and traveled long distances to speak to me
about their darkest concerns. When these people arrived, I took them to the place of snakes and asked
the serpents to give me Mari’s answer.
One woman who had been barren since her mating several years before asked if she would
ever conceive a child. If she could not, her husband would have the right to abandon her, according to
the laws of their tribe. The snakes performed a complicated dance which I interpreted to mean that she
would conceive, but not with the man to whom she was mated. Two years later, the same woman
returned—with her child, her new man who had come to her after her husband had dismissed her as his
mate, and a number of others from her tribe. They brought with them food and two live sheep.
The next group that came brought a metal-edged saw for cutting wood. Others came, too,
offering their labor in exchange for the predictions of the snakes.
But when the soldiers came, the snakes grew still.
(Extra Space)
From the beginning, there were few warriors among my people. That was the reason why we
had fled our former home: War was not in our nature. We were not prepared for a long siege with
barbarians who attacked like wolves nipping at the heels of a large beast. In time, the beast will tire and
the wolves will feast.
The Keltoi raided us and other villages for years. They themselves lived in the forests like the
wolves they were, emerging only to take what they wanted from whoever had it. Within a generation,
most of the people who lived in Mari’s land had either fled or been killed by the Keltoi.
My people were not among those who fled. We heard that those who had tried to escape the
barbarians had all been captured and tortured. Even so, we might have built boats and left by way of
the sea. But we did not.
I cannot speak for all the elders of my tribe, but I believe we were simply tired of running. We
were not born to fight, but fight we did, and our men had faced the enemy unafraid. But it was the way
that we were forced to fight that was so disheartening, never knowing when the outlanders would strike,
or how long they would remain, or what they would take.
In time, all those among my people who could fight had been forced to do so, and all had been
killed by the Keltoi. Then those who could not fight were killed. In twos and threes, all of the men and
most of the able-bodied women, along with their suckling infants, were dead. All that remained of the
tribe were women, sick and dying, the elderly, the young children, and the priestess Araiama and her
acolytes to care for them.
When the last of our fighters failed to return after three days, I went to the place of snakes to
seek advice.
(Extra Space)
It was where we had come when my people had first arrived in this land. It had been summer
then. The water of the lake had been warm, though rippled through with ice-cold eddies from the
waterfall that spilled down the cliff on one side of it. All the tribe had stopped, first to gaze at the
waterfall and then, timidly, to bathe in the shallows on the other side while I remained with my sisters, the
snakes.
Now, so many years later, I summoned my sisters once more.
The serpents were coiled on the rocks, unmoving, as if they had been waiting for me. A tangle
of small garter snakes were the first to recognize me, wriggling to life and then scuttling over the rocks at
the base of the falls. Then came the others, the whip snakes and four-lines, the sand snakes, the grass
snakes, the vipers with their blunt snouts and the asps, as delicate as dancers, followed by the big
snakes that coiled around my body as I stood beside the cascade of water with the mist rising around us
like a nimbus.
It was no longer summer, but so cold that ice formed over the waterfall so that the very
mist seemed to be frozen and solid. I stood upon a rock in the water and raised my arms in the manner I
had been taught to invoke the Goddess.
―Hear me, great Mother,‖ I whispered. At my words, more snakes appeared struggling out
from under the rocks where they slept. Stiff with cold, their fragile lives endangered by the monumental
effort of movement, they came toward me, coiling around my neck and into my hair, warming as their dry
winter skins touched me.
I knew the Goddess was listening.
―What shall we do?‖ I asked. ―We have no men and no defenses. It is too far to go back the
way we came. Now it is winter, and we do not even have enough food to sustain us. Should we move on
further? Where would we go?‖ The snakes moved around me, listening, pushing gently at the wheel of
fortune. ―Help me, Mari,‖ I prayed.
I remained standing upon the rock, still and silent, until the sun reached its zenith. Then, as if
responding to a call outside the range of my hearing, the snakes left. They traveled almost in a straight
line toward the frost line, where a pile of boulders marked a deposit from a long-vanished glacier. I
followed them.
Behind the boulders was the body of a young doe, not long dead, but on its way to freezing.
Its leg was broken, but somehow it had made it through the night without being discovered by any
predator larger than an insect.
I lifted its hind legs experimentally. The animal was heavy—perhaps eighty pounds—but I, like
all the surviving women of my tribe, had grown strong from the hardships of life without men. I hoisted it
up onto my shoulders, accepting the ants and millipedes that crawled off the carcass onto my own,
warmer, skin. The deer would provide enough food to keep our small band of women and girls alive
through the rest of the winter.
I had my answer. We would stay.
(Extra Space)
Q: Why is it so cold? Isn’t the Basque country in Spain?
Q :Why didn’t the neighboring tribes band together? Have they all been decimated, too?
Q: Are the Keltoi monotheistic phallus-worshippers, out to destroy the Goddess cults? Did that
happen this early, or are we talking about Hebrews? This isn’t a Bible story.
Add dialogue.
Need more incidents, esp. love stories. One of the girls – Delta, was it?—gets pregnant, and
Araiama herself meets someone, maybe even one of the Keltoi, with whom she has a deep attraction, but
neither of them can do anything about it, of course, until she accidentally meets him years later…

Let me tell my story.
(Extra Space)
We ate the deer’s meat, but also used every other part of the animal—its hide, hooves, tail,
entrails, its eyes, its nose, even its flat yellow teeth—to help us survive the winter. The women took new
names: Moonrise, Black Swan, Damiana, Rowan, Willow, Poppy. These reflected the nature around
them, aligning us more completely with the will of the Goddess. I used my full religious name, Araiama
Mari, each morning as I addressed the spirits of the universe who would keep my vulnerable group of
children and old women from harm.
―Attend me, ye greater and lesser spirits!‖ I intoned. ―For it is my face you see through the mist
between our worlds, and my voice you hear across the great abyss.‖
Each day I would ask for the wisdom to understand the sometimes obscure prophecies of the
Goddess, and for the courage to do what these promptings necessitated.
By spring, we had repaired our nets and were able to catch fish in great quantity. The fields,
neglected during the years of war and deprivation, were brought to life again by the patient efforts of
the old women. As they grew, each of the girl children found her own talents: Moonrise became adept
at fishing, and arranged for us all to work our nets together. Poppy, who had been so timid as a child,
turned out to have a gift for healing. Some were gardeners, some hunters. Some raised animals: tame
geese, dogs that helped with the hunting, even a goat that Rowan had raised from infancy before
tearfully slaughtering it in order to feed us all for another month.
The youngest, Willow, possessed the gift of grace to such a degree that her dancing was used
in Mari’s worship while the rest of us sang or beat drums made from animal skins and wood by our best
musician, Damiana. Black Swan, who was neither musical nor graceful, whose voice was so abrasive
and unpleasant that no one wished even to hear her speak, nevertheless discovered that she could
build. Using her particular perceptions of space and measurement, she designed a temple to Mari that
we began to construct before spring had slipped into summer.
The temple was made entirely of small pieces of wood. This had been out of necessity. We
could not use logs because, even working together, we could not cut down large trees with the few tools
we possessed. But we could cut smaller pieces from fallen branches, then haul the wood down from the
mountains on woven nets converted to sledges. With the metal tool given to us in payment for a
prophecy, Black Swan carved each piece of wood used for the temple so precisely that the walls were
nearly airtight.
We built it beside the standing stone that my people had raised thirty years before as a
monument to Great Mari. Together, they were a sight unlike anything any of us had ever seen, either in
our former land or in this new world.
I think Mari was pleased. We moved into the temple, and the Keltoi did not come at all that
year, or the next.
(Extra Space)
By then, all of the old ones among us had died. At fifty winters, I was by far the eldest, and the
leader of our pathetic little female colony. Although all the women participated in the rituals and
offerings to Mari, Moonrise in particular assisted me. I called her Momo, ―Beloved,‖ a nickname given
to her when she had barely been able to walk.
It was she whom I trained as my successor, although that thought always made me
uncomfortable. It was not that I feared death, or that I wished to retain my power forever. It was, of all
things, that I did not want to move again.
It sounds so foolish now, that this, this inertia would have been the reason why I had allowed –
no, more than allowed, why I had welcomed their deaths with beckoning arms. But that is what it was: In
the end, I had simply been immobilized by my desire for comfort.
I knew that I had to get the acolytes away from that place; with each day I knew it more strongly.
They were the last of our tribe. Without men, our entire history would die with them. And yet the
Keltoi had not attacked in two years. Our temple was comfortable. My bones were growing weary.
Our days had taken on a routine, almost a cadence, like formal music. Each hour led inexorably into the
next. In my way, I was like a queen, waited on by civilized ladies. When we moved – as I knew we must – I
would lose that privilege. In a new home, I would not even be High Priestess any longer. That would be
Momo’s position. I would just be an old woman, watching the world move on.
But in my temple, nothing moved. Nothing changed. Time stood still.
And so I told myself that we had nowhere to go, that we had no weapons, no allies, no boats.
And that we were women. It was better to stay here, I said. For tonight, at least. Tomorrow, perhaps I
would find a way. The next day I would make a plan. One day soon we would set off on another
adventure. I would be Snake Finder once more. We would turn the wheel of fortune. One day. Yes.
Meanwhile, day after day Momo went to the place of the snakes to speak to them and through
them to the Goddess, as I had when people came from afar to ask Mari’s counsel. Each day Momo
waited by the rocks for the snakes, but they did not appear. It was as if they had ceased utterly to
exist.
―I see nothing,‖ she reported to me at night, in the comfort of our temple.
―They are remaining in their home,‖ I explained. ―That is the meaning of the snakes.‖
Momo did not respond. She did not agree with my interpretation, but who was she to question
me? Before becoming High Priestess, was I not called Snake Finder?
Yet she still questioned me with her eyes.
Momo had spoken with the snakes since she was a girl. She knew how they thought. ―If...‖ she
began, but her voice failed.
―What is it?‖ I snapped. ―Go ahead, speak.‖
Tears sprang to Momo’s eyes. ―I fear I will displease you...‖
I slammed my hand down the table in front of me. ―What is it you wish to say?‖
―It is only a question, Mother,‖ Momo said quietly. She swallowed.
―Yes?‖
―If the snakes had not gone into the rocks, but had instead fled...‖ Two spots of color rose in
her cheeks. ―If that were the case, should we not also flee?‖
It was the question I myself had been trying not to ask.
―We shall remain where we are,‖ I said quietly. ―For the time being.‖
―But the snakes—‖
―The snakes have retreated into their homes,‖ I insisted. After a long pause I added, ―Great
Mari will look after us.‖
―Yes, Mother.‖
Moving again. Starting over. Change. Change, the eternal enemy.
―Until we find a place to go.‖
―Yes, Mother.‖
―Perhaps next spring.‖
―Yes, Mother.‖ I saw her retreating as my eyes closed, heavy, tired, welcoming sleep.
(Extra Space)
Beyond the strange wooden ziggurat of the temple stood the foothills of the great mountains,
where the riotously colored trees gave way to tall firs, and the mountain peaks pointed straight into the
clouds.
The invading armies wanted this land, with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other.
They sent a messenger demanding that the women leave the temple. I responded by returning with him
to the stronghold of the Keltoi. They lived among the trees of the forest, sleeping in rude tents that
stank of poorly cured hides, and ate their food from planks made of bark.
―Who are you?‖ their commander demanded, although he had been informed that the priestess
of the temple to whom he had sent his messenger had come to see him. He made me wait, standing in the
sun, for several hours before agreeing to see me. When at last I was permitted to enter his tent, he kept
his back turned to me.
―You know perfectly well who I am,‖ I answered. The Keltoi had been creeping into the
Goddess’ lands for many years. I could speak their language well enough to be understood.
―And you know perfectly well what is expected of you,‖ the commander said in my own
language.
That surprised me. I hadn’t believed these men capable of much human thought. Their leader
was tall, even for the Keltoi, and seemed not so barbaric as most. For one thing, his hair was of a natural
color, light brown. The gold which streaked through it came from the sun, I think, and not the pigments
his men used to frighten their prey. He wore woven clothing, rather than skins or, Goddess forbid, his
naked skin, as his warriors did when they attacked. And his face was shaven.
This was most peculiar, as the men of my tribe did not practice this. I was aware that the Keltoi
did, although they were inclined to shave only the sides and bottoms of their faces, leaving foul
mustaches hanging over their lips. This one looked considerably cleaner.
But his heart was no better than the animals he commanded.
―My men will take the land in three days. I am being extremely lenient by warning you.‖
―I thank you for your generosity,‖ I said dryly, ―but we will not permit you to take our land.‖
The soldier could not help but smile. ―How do you plan to stop us?‖
―We will not stop you. The Goddess will.‖
He exhaled a mirthless puff of air, like a stallion snorting in the frost. ―Madam, like all women
who attempt to live without men, you are a fool. Your goddess has not served you in any of the places
where you have pretended to power, and she is most certainly not going to miraculously save you from
the depredations of fifty soldiers who have not seen the insides of their homes in six months.‖
―Soldiers,‖ I spat. ―They are beasts. Great Mari has power far beyond your battle axes.‖
Fine words, but my throat was bone-dry. I thought that if I could intimidate him, perhaps we would be
able to
keep the temple, at least. But what he said about his men not being with their own women for months
was beginning to sink into my thoughts, and I did not like the way those thoughts were taking shape.
The commander finally turned to face me. ―I am the father of daughters,‖ he said. ―That is why
I am urging you to go before it is too late.‖
―Then leave us to our temple!‖
―I cannot,‖ he said softly.
―We have done you no harm.‖ My voice was bitter.
―Your time is done,‖ the commander said, and left the tent. The soldier standing guard,
thickset, blank-faced, jerked his head as an invitation for me to leave.
(Extra Space)
They came at dawn three days later. The first thing the soldiers did was to torch the temple.
As my women fled the flames, the Keltoi poured in, their odor metallic. Some were laughing. I
screamed as one of the men caught Black Swan by her neck and then stripped the clothes off her.
The warrior was grizzled, his ugly long mustache turning to gray. Black Swan looked like a small bird
beneath him. She cast a desperate glance toward me.
I lunged at them, but the old man batted me away with a swat of his forearm. Above, pieces of
the wooden ceiling, erected so carefully, one small piece at a time, fell down like rain upon us. A boy
with an axe—at least he seemed to be no more than a boy—grinned as he hacked at it. The sun shone
through, blinding, behind the rain of wood.
As Black Swan’s final scream rent the air, I saw her eyes, rolling and wide, like a lamb’s before
its throat is cut, wild with fear. Then came the blinding light, a brief glimpse of the grinning boy with the
axe, the pain of the wood falling, scratching my face, striking my skull, burying me.
And then nothing.
(Extra Space)
I awoke near nightfall lying, inexplicably, in the woods. Dried blood had crusted my eyes shut.
I was cold. But what I noticed most was the silence. There was not the faintest sound of life anywhere
around me.
Beside me lay a girl’s foot, hacked off at the ankle. I gasped. Struggling to pull myself to my
knees, I crawled a few yards uphill to where the rest of the body lay.
It was Momo. Her throat had been cut. Her fingers were broken. She was naked. Caked
blood coated her thighs.
I reached out a hand to touch the cold skin of the girl who had been more than a daughter to
me.
My fault, I thought, the words slamming inside my mind like physical blows. I had been warned! I could
have sent the acolytes away, even without me, on their own. What difference did it make if there was no
settlement to welcome them? They could have survived in the woods, traveled to some other place,
started over. They could have survived...
What had killed them, I understood with a horrible clarity, was my own unwillingness to accept
the truth. Momo had seen it instantly. Momo, who now lay dead, her body violated and chopped to
pieces, had known that the inevitable cannot be avoided.
I forced myself up off the ground. A tangle of white hair, singed and stinking, remained where I
had lain. I ran my hand over my head. I had no hair left, and my scalp was covered with scabs and blisters.
It must have caught fire, I reasoned, after the roof had fallen in. Momo, who might have run to
safety, had pulled me out of the temple, and then dragged or carried me to these woods.
So far! She had carried me… how? On her back? And for what? Someone had caught up
with her in the end. Who was it? The grizzled old man who had raped Black Swan in the temple of the
Great Mother? Had he been the one to cut Momo’s belly open with dirt-encrusted hands after taking
his pleasure upon her?
A low moan of uncontained, uncontrollable grief arose from somewhere within my soul. While I
lay asleep, the world had ended.
With my burnt hair and a curtain of dried blood covering my face, I must have been taken for
dead, an old woman of no interest to the lusty warriors who had never learned the difference between
sex and death.
I staggered a short distance before realizing that I had no destination. Before me lay a field of
devastation: the still-smoking ruins of the temple, and around it, scattered like broken dolls, the bodies
of my acolytes, Mari’s future priestesses. Damiana, still wearing the robe of white gossamer that had
been given to the women as an offering from a merchant; Poppy, her eyes wide open in surprise, as if the
horror of death were something she had never before considered. I looked from one to the other, numb,
stumbling, hearing less and less of the sounds outside my mind. The wind in my ears was transfigured
into a dull, throbbing hum, a buzz that swept through me like the strongest wine, rendering me barely
able to walk. I moved as if I were made of wood, painfully, bending over one piece of bloody flesh, then
another, shooing away the flies, brushing back the ants, innocent predators who meant no offense by
eating what had transformed in a single, terrible afternoon from a laughing girl with hair that smelled of
sunlight into a slab of carrion.
Willow, who had not lived twelve years, was the last one I found. She had been disemboweled.
Her lungs had been pressed through slits in her back, so that they resembled an angel’s wings. I picked
her up silently and held the small body against my own.
Why? I asked as I walked with Willow toward the cliff edge. The word no longer had any real
meaning, but echoed nonetheless through the endless, suddenly empty chambers of my mind.
The barbarians could have taken the land. Why had they felt it necessary to kill these
children?
But then, they hadn’t been children to those men, had they? To them, these virgin girls were no better
than whores, born to serve their killers before giving up their lives to them.
I no longer understood anything. Where had the Goddess gone, that such a thing could
happen? The snakes, her messengers, had fled the place where they had once spoken to me. Had
Great Mari gone with them? Or had she died on this field, along with the beautiful girls who had served
her?
Could it be that I, in my pride and stupidity, was the only one left?
(Extra Space)
Bearing the body of Willow, I walked to the edge of the land. Below, in the ravine among the
white bones of fallen animals strewn incongruously among a vast expanse of wildflowers in bloom, lay the
corpses of the rest of the acolytes. Fully dressed and unviolated, they had jumped to their deaths
rather than face defilement from the invaders. Even now, several of them remained together, their
hands clasped in solidarity.
So this is how it ends, I thought. Of the tribe who had journeyed from a land so far distant
that even their faces had seemed exotic and strange, only one old woman remained. Old and mad and
desirous only of death.
Gently I set down the body of the child who had trusted me to keep her safe. I did not bless
the girl with the rite of the Old Religion, because I no longer possessed the authority to do so.
I am Araiama, priestess of Mari, servant of the Great Mother...
I laughed mirthlessly as I walked down the hill toward the unknown country. I would walk, I
supposed, until the yellow-haired warriors killed me, or until the sun pierced my brain, or until my feet fell
off and the vultures came to snatch them away.
It is my face you see through the mist between the worlds, my voice you hear calling to you
across the great abyss. Attend me, ye greater and lesser spirits...
―Attend me!‖ I shouted as I stumbled across the rocks of the low hills. The ground was
charred black. Dead earth, like the ghosts who walked upon it.
In the dying sunlight, a piece of metal glinted red at my feet. Numbly, with the disinterest of a
sleepwalker, I picked it up. It was a soldier’s dagger, still reeking of blood. Slowly I sank to my knees,
and then doubled over so that my face scraped against the crackling, blackened grass.
―Attend me!‖ I whispered into the earth. I was speaking to the Mother. My lips moved close to
the ground. My words poured out of me like liquid poison. ―On the souls of these innocents whose
deaths I have brought about through the misuse of my power,‖ I moaned, ―I swear I shall never have the
opportunity to harm another.‖
With difficulty I stood up to my full height and raised my arms in the posture of supplication,
the blade of the dagger gleaming. ―Great Mother, hear me!‖ I commanded. ―I do not ask for your
forgiveness, but only for your hatred! My sin is too great to be ended by a quick death. Therefore I
curse your former priestess, Araiama, to a thousand lives of humility and shame. In none of those
thousand lives shall she exercise power over another human being. May she know only suffering. May
her mouth taste of dust, may her thirst never slake, may her heart know only bitterness and despair.
May her eyes look forever downward. May her nostrils be filled with flies. May her hands be forever
empty as she wanders this land like a wraith, contemptible and unwelcome. By the power of the four
elements and by all the spirits summoned by my voice, let this be so!‖
With this, I drew the soldier’s dagger across the palms of both my hands, and spilled my blood
into the already blood-soaked earth. ―I seal this curse with the befouled blood of my body,‖ I said. ―So
mote it be.‖
So mote it be.
Chapter Sixteen
Mo
Mo awoke to the electric-fly hum of the computer and the familiar sight of cartoon cows flying
across the monitor screen. Her neck was stiff from lying across her folded arms on her desk. Her hands
were numb, and bore the imprint of her earrings. Blinking and smacking her lips, she moved the mouse.
The flying cows were replaced by words.
How many pages? She scrolled backward. A lot, the best day‘s work she had done in years.
―Thank you, Araiama,‖ she said under her breath as she brought the cursor back to the end.
It isn’t complete, the last sentence read. This is only a part of the middle section.
―Oh?‖ Well, of course. This was a first draft. One of the most important things she had learned
about the craft of novel writing was that the first draft was of very little importance.
Her earlier books had been masterworks of suffering, each page labored over as if the words were
carved in stone, scrutinized, analyzed, placed in context of the unwritten, and therefore unknowable, novel.
So thoroughly had she questioned every sentence she wrote that sooner or later she would cease to write at
all for weeks at a time, sunk into a welter of confusion and despair. It was only when she discovered, after
several revisions of a particularly troublesome book, that the first draft of anything as long and
encompassing as a novel was as far removed from the finished product as a human embryo is from a
concert violinist.
After that realization, ten novels after she had begun to write professionally, Mo was finally
beginning to feel the way she had when she had first begun to write, back in the days when the words
inside her felt like wild birds needing to be released, needing to fly.
But the middle? Had she really gotten as far as the middle of the book?
She felt jubilant. The middle was always the hardest part, thick with transitions. A writer‘s
creativity showed at the beginning of a novel, and her phyilosophy at the end. But the middle was what
required skill.
At least a dozen times a year, Mo encountered people who, upon learning what she did for a
living, tried to persuade her to write their life‘s story for them. ―It‘s all in here,‖ they would explain with
assurance, tapping their temples with an index finger. ―You‘d just have to write down the words.‖
She had found a number of ways to slide away from the subject, since it would have been
unneccesarily cruel to point out that what was ―in there‖ was probably something like four incidents, all at
the beginning. There was never a middle. Even when she herself got one of those flashes of insight in
which an entire novel seemed to appear in an epiphany, the actual content of the story usually turned out to
be far less than it had appeared at first. Invariably, her insight had provided not a book, but something
more like a concept supported by a few plot points, a twist at the end which, the moment it was written on
paper, transformed from an idea of genius to a lame and transparent trick, a weak beginning, and no middle
section at all.
Middles were tough, sinewey, the gristle of a book holding the story together by cause and effect,
the characters evolving through action and reaction, with a million pieces of fact mixed in with the fantasy,
the plot elements woven until they were airtight.
A novel was, in fact, a sort of basket, a fabrication of commonplace observations holding a single,
fragile object of pure beauty. Or perhaps, more romantically, it was a magic carpet. Inspiration gave it the
magic to fly, but its ability to hold a human being as it flew depended solely on skill.
Q: Why is it so cold?
Mo erased the line. Weather was immaterial. Ditto the second question. The situation with the
neighboring tribes was worked out in the second part of the text.
A flutter of unease trembled in her stomach. Mo had no recollection of writing these questions or,
in fact, of writing the text itself. Scrolling back, she began to read the pages she had put into the computer
during that long and unremembered night.
What had happened to her? It was as if she had been asleep the whole time, like the shoemaker
for whom elves had come in the night to do his work.
Q: Are the Keltoi monotheistic phallus-worshippers…
Mo attacked the keyboard. I like the idea of the soldiers being enemies of the Goddess.
Misogynistic bastards determined to take authority away from women. I’m just concerned that the time
period, loose as it is, may be too far off. King David, the father of all goddess-killers, reigned around 900
BCE, way too recently. During Neolithic (monolith construction) times, goddess worship was the norm…
She recoiled. She was arguing, defending something that she didn‘t even remember having
written. Mo began to shiver in earnest.
Who wrote this? she typed.
The room encased her in silence. She stood up, looked again at the screen filled with words she
did not remember having written.
Mo took a deep breath and smiled grimly as she struck the keys to save the work. ―Who do
you think wrote it?‖ she asked aloud.
―I did.‖
A new voice, strong, imperious, willful. Araiama‘s voice. ―Through you, of course.‖
Mo leaped away from the computer and tripped over an ottoman. The woman in green was
standing near the window, shimmering in the sunlight. Slowly Mo melted onto the ottoman and took her
head in both hands. ―Oh, God,‖ she said. ―Why are you here again?‖
―You seem less than delighted to see me,‖ Araiama said, her face carefully blank.
―Don‘t take it personally.‖ Mo uncovered her eyes, took a long look at the older woman, and
sighed. ―It‘s just that seeing you means… well…‖ She ran her hand over her face. ―I invented you,
remember? You‘re a character of mine, and…‖ she spoke very carefully now, so that she would be able to
report every word exactly to her therapist. ―And no one can see you except me.‖
―Your invisible friend. How charming.‖
―Yeah,‖ Mo said. ―Former bestselling novelist Mo Owens finally lost her battle with insanity in a
trailer park in southeastern Tennessee.‖
―Will you make newspaper headlines?‖
―No,‖ Mo said. ―I probably won‘t even rate a line in Publisher‘s Weekly.‖
―Then stop contemplating your own death. It‘s never as romantic as it seems.‖
Mo sat back, stretching. ―How did you die, anyway? According to what I wrote, you just sort of
wandered around, a filthy old hag spouting nonsense.‖
―Oh, I hardly even remember. By a stream somewhere, near the foot of a mountain.‖
―Where? In Spain?‖
―What‘s Spain?‖
―Oh, that‘s right. Your knowledge of modern geography is nonexistent.‖
―Perhaps. But there are many things you could learn from me, as well.‖
―Are there?‖
What ironic arrogance, Mo thought. There wasn‘t a single fact in Araiama‘s fictional brain that
hadn‘t existed first in her creator‘s, whether the creator – Mo herself – was conscious of it or not.
Finally Mo spoke. ―Why have you come to me?‖ she asked softly.
―Because I am your mirror,‖ Araiama answered. ―Through me you see yourself. By observing my
world, you understand your own.‖
Mo thought about it. ―That‘s the point of fiction,‖ she said. ―and pretty much true of anything a
writer writes. Remember Flaubert?
―C‘est moi,‖ Araiama repeated.
―Of course. You knew the answer, because I knew it first.‖
―What ironic arrogance,‖ she said, smiling. ―I knew it because we‘d already talked about
Flaubert.‖
―Oh, all right. Well, tell me, then....‖ she thought for a moment. ―Who did you come back as? Do
you remember any of those thousand lives?‖
―Of course,‖ Araiama said. ―A Viking warrior killed on the first day of battle, a Russian ballerina
waiting at the station with the old man she has married in order to have a secure future... A lot of good it
did! She was killed along with him in the first month of the Russian revolution. She was nineteen years
old, and her feet were still callused from her toe shoes.‖
―Who else?‖
―Oh, I don‘t know. An Egyptian baker taken away by the authorities for some infraction or other,
a Japanese pearl diver who tried to keep a pearl for herself by swallowing it... What does it matter now?
They‘re all dead.‖
―It matters because I need to finish the book!‖ Mo shouted. ―How does it end?‖
―What?
―Your stupid story, goddammit. I mean, what you gave me… Is that it? You piss around and don‘t
leave when you have the chance, so barbarian hordes come and wipe out your band of holy girls, and then
you curse yourself and turn into a hobo? That’s what I‘m supposed to present to a bunch of sophisticated
New York editors who each have a million other books to read?‖
―Well, it ought to be written with more finesse than that,‖ Araiama said haughtily.
―But is that all you‘ve got?‖ Mo was beside herself by now. ―Just that?‖
―Of course not. I‘ve told you, you‘ve only just reached the middle of it.‖
―Then what else happens?‖
―That‘s for you to figure out.‖
―News flash, Miss Thing. It‘s your story.‖
―Mine, yes. And yours.‖
She stared hard at the older woman. ―What are you saying, Araiama?‖
―Oh, how tiresome.‖
―Are you saying that I … that I am you? Like, literally, your current living incarnation?‖
―My what?‖
―One of the powerless lives you cursed yourself to live? Is that what you‘re saying? That I‘m one
of your loser selves?‖
―Well...‖
―Geez.‖ Mo felt as if a curtain of despair were falling over her, over her life. Her wasted,
powerless, doomed life. ―I should have known,‖ she said.
―Perhaps you already did,‖ Araiama said. ―Since you claim to know everything I know.‖
―Oh, stop it,‖ Mo said irritably. She pulled on her nose. ―Wait a minute. You cursed yourself to a
thousand powerless lives, wasn‘t that what I... what we wrote?‖
―A thousand lives, yes.‖
―All wasted.‖
Araiama looked weary. ―Wasted, yes.‖
―And my life is one of those wasted lives.‖
Araiama shrugged.
―So anyway, now we‘re somewhere in the opening stretch of those thousand lives.‖
―Opening stretch? What are you talking about?‖
―Well, I‘m not being strict about time in the book, but I loosely place the events that took place at
basically the beginning of civilization, say 6,000 BCE.‖
―How dull you are,‖ Araiama noted. ―No wonder you have no power.‖
―Well, given that each life averages, say, 25 years, I‘d place myself at around Life Number 325.‖
―What?‖
―It takes time to live a thousand lifetimes. At least 25,000 years.‖
―But there is no such thing as time.‖
Mo blinked.
―Not in the realm of eternity.‖
Mo tried to digest. ―Then what …‖ The idea was beginning to form. ―What are you telling me?‖
Araiama smiled beatifically. ―Can‘t you guess? Since you are my creator?‖
―Don‘t do this.‖
But Mo knew the answer already, because she was indeed Araiama‘s creator, because she knew,
had known all along, she supposed, that skill and magic were never enough, that sooner or later, she would
have to lie naked in the primeval pool of her own creation and tell the truth about herself.
―Madame Bovary, c’est moi,‖ Araiama reminded her. ―Yours is the thousandth life.‖
Part III
Beltane
May 1
A time of growth and reclamation, when beautiful things begin to bloom and what seems to be
dead comes to miraculous life.
Chapter Seventeen
Katherine
Katherine did not like Victoria Tanner, and particularly disliked being naked in her presence.
Unfortunately, that was the state in which she found herself as they lay side by side in one of The Ultimate
Woman‘s double massage rooms.
Since it was not in Katherine‘s nature to confront, control, or reject anyone, she was often forced
into Victoria‘s company. Circumstances bringing the two women together occurred so often that Victoria
was convinced that Katherine was actually her friend, when in fact nothing could have been farther from
the truth.
―And so I told him that if he didn‘t update his glasses so that he at least looked as if he belonged in
this decade, he could forget about seeing me again,‖ Victoria said. ―Needless to say, the next time we met,
he had traded in the Urkel frames for a decent pair of Versaces... Where the hell are those girls?‖ Victoria
propped herself up on her elbows, her breasts quivering as they rose out of the wells of the massage table,
her head whipping around energetically. ―Is there a goddamned bell or something?‖
Katherine fought off the urge to flee. In all the years she had been a member of The Ultimate
Woman, she had never had a massage. It was the clinical setting, she decided. It was bad enough having to
bare herself in front of Victoria; doing so on what looked like a mortuary slab beneath operating room
lights that revealed every furrow of cellulite on her body was almost more than she could stand. Some
athletic young woman would be looking at—no, worse, touching the soft area on the underside of her upper
arms which no amount of triceps lifts could tighten totally. She pictured herself, as she often did, as a
cadaver, flabby, bony, lacking in tone. Old.
Her body was no longer the lean, smooth sculpture she had occupied since her earliest
recollections. Her weight was the same — at 5‖ 7‖, Katherine still wore a size six — but the proportions
were different. The sixes were no longer sleek silk dresses cut to show the perfect lines beneath. They had
been replaced in recent years by complex, structured styles designed to camouflage the slight thickening of
the waist, the knobby shoulders, the excess skin around the neck, the too-soft breasts.
Oh, why had she come! When Katherine had encountered Victoria at the entrance to the Ultimate
Woman (Chattanooga Branch), she had planned, after the initial feeling of panic had subsided, to beat a
hasty retreat as soon as possible. She was not exactly sure how Victoria had talked her into the massage.
Because she was weak, Katherine thought with a flush of shame that came bubbling up through
her arms and back and face like red-hot ginger ale. Victoria Tanner was a predator, Katherine knew, a lion.
And what was Katherine herself? she wondered. A gazelle, perhaps, timid, frightened, with her only
defense in her ability to run away. But the prey was cornered in this small, airless place now. There was
no safety here, nowhere for Katherine to run. And Victoria smelled blood. The only question, Katherine
mused, was how much did Victoria already know?
―Maybe no one‘s coming,‖ Katherine said, rising slowly to a sitting position on the massage table.
Her stomach felt as if it were filled with flapping birds. This was her chance to escape, her only chance.
―Actually, I‘m running a little late as it is—‖
At that moment, two equally unpleasant things occurred simultaneously. One was that the door
opened and two smiling women dressed in white pants and tee shirts entered.
―Hi, guys. You ready?‖ one of them asked. That was the second thing. The masseuse was Bebe
Butler, Katherine‘s neighbor at Elysian Fields.
Katherine gasped so loudly that Victoria turned her head toward her and narrowed her lioness‘
eyes.
The gazelle was trapped. If Victoria found out that she had moved out of her home, then
everything else would soon come out, and in the worst possible light. She would lose her job at the church,
surely, and the Society Of The Arts, exclusive as it was, would understandably ask her to leave.
―Sorry if we scared you,‖ Bebe said with a friendly grin.
Victoria‘s slit eyes travelled from Katherine to Bebe. ―Well, try not to be such a bull in a china
shop, then,‖ she said finally.
―Yes, Mrs. Tanner,‖ Bebe said, unperturbed. ―Regular Swedish?‖ She walked over to Victoria‘s
prone form and adjusted the sheet as her client grunted in reply. Bebe never looked in Katherine‘s
direction.
After a moment, the other massage therapist coughed discreetly. ―Would you like to lie down?‖
she asked.
Katherine realized that she was sitting ramrod straight on the table, neck corded and eyes bulging.
―Oh. All right,‖ she answered in a rasp, forcing herself to lie flat.
The masseuse felt along Katherine‘s shoulders. ―You‘ve got a lot of tension,‖ she said.
―Shhh,‖ Victoria hissed, then laughed. ―Now, try to relax,‖ she cooed to Katherine. ―Honestly,
you‘re such a nervous wreck. I suppose it‘s the constant dieting.‖
Katherine wanted to shout that she was not constantly dieting, that if she were, she would have a
much better figure than she had, but decided not to give Victoria the satisfaction. She remained silent.
―Well, at least you‘re not sickly looking,‖ Victoria reasoned. ―Look at poor Mo Owens. Good
God, have you seen her lately? She looks twenty years older than when she got here!‖
Katherine cast an uncomfortable glance at Bebe, who was frowning mightily at her client‘s
exposed backside. ―I think she looks nice,‖ Katherine offered, aware of how Pollyanna she sounded.
―Oh, you‘re such a charitable soul, Katherine! The truth is, Mo‘s a middle-aged woman whose
husband left her for greener pastures, and it shows. Do you know she bought a trailer park? She reached
over and poked Katherine‘s arm with a long red fingernail. ―In Beltsville. I‘ll tell you about it later,‖ she
said, rolling her eyes expressively toward the masseuses.
Katherine blinked warily. Maybe Victoria didn‘t know about her new living arrangements, after
all.
―I suppose she‘s trying to hide from the world,‖ Victoria went on. ―Poor thing. It‘s the worst thing
she could do. I told her, you‘ve got to get back in circulation, honey. You know what they say. The best
way to get over one man is to get under another.‖ She laughed raucously at her own wit.
Katherine‘s heart was pounding again. How much did Victoria know about Forrest?
―Seriously. She‘s got to learn how to move on. Desmond Owens certainly has. I heard he‘s going
to be on Oprah. And he‘s got this huge website filled with pictures of himself hobnobbing with all sorts of
celebrities and politicians—and that gorgeous twinkie girlfriend, of course, making sure he doesn‘t stray
from her the way he did from Mo. But then, I don‘t think Mo ever had a chance. You can tell just by
looking at Desmond that he‘s a player.‖
Katherine felt a wave of sadness for her old friend wash over her. Victoria Tanner had never even
met Desmond. He had been charming, yes, but Mari Auvergne had been every bit his match. At least until
their son had died, and even then, she had kept up a good front. It was only recently that Mari – Mo, MO,
damn it – seemed to have fallen apart. But then, Katherine had never lived with Mo before. She hadn‘t
realized how solitary Mo was, how silent. Her whole life these days seemed to revolve around her book,
and she wouldn‘t even discuss that with the others. Sometimes Katherine felt as if she didn‘t know Mo at
all.
Victoria snorted. ―I swear, I can spot them a mile away.‖
―Who?‖ Katherine asked.
―Players. When you do Internet dating, you learn real fast who‘s worth getting to know better and
who‘s just a loser. Not that Desmond Owens is any kind of loser. Handsome, rich, famous... Mmmm. Mo
should have kept a closer eye on that one.‖ Victoria craned backward. ―May I ask what in the hell you‘re
doing?‖ she shrilled.
―I thought you liked it hard, Mrs.Tanner,‖ Bebe said.
―Well, there‘s a difference between massage and assault,‖ she said. ―Don‘t get so carried away.‖
Bebe lightened up. ―Better?‖ she asked.
Victoria ignored her. ―I don‘t even remember what I was saying.‖ She looked hopefully toward
Katherine, but nothing was forthcoming. ―Oh, well. Oh!‖ Her enthusiasm suddenly sprang back. ―I know
why I wanted to talk to you. Katherine, what are you doing in September?
It was a foray, Katherine realized. The lioness was sauntering casually toward the old watering
hole, an eye out just in case. Katherine swallowed, feeling new knots of muscle forming in her neck. ―I
don‘t know,‖ she answered circumspectly. ―Why?‖
―The SOTA showhouse, my dear,‖ Victoria said, as if Katherine had forgotten her own name.
―You know I‘m always in charge of that.‖
―Oh. Yes.‖ She was relieved. The Society Of The Arts was a neutral subject. ―I didn‘t know we
were going to have a showhouse this year. There was some discussion about it, I thought.‖
The discussion had come dangerously close to becoming a shouting match between Victoria, who
had run SOTA‘s major fundraiser for the past four years, and some other members who objected to
Victoria‘s fascist tactics.
The showhouse was, in fact, one of Victoria‘s best ideas, and one in which her special talents and
connections contributed. Each year she found some large, run-down house that was either being bought or
sold, then strongarmed local decorators, landscapers, and contractors into giving the place a room-by-room
facelift, eventually transforming the house from a derelict shell into a magnificent restored building which
the Society then opened to the public for an admission fee. The owners benefitted, the decorators received
free advertising, and SOTA made a lot of money.
The only problem was that no one in the Society Of The Arts was willing to work with Victoria.
―Piffle,‖ she said, waving her manicured fingers. ―The showhouse is the biggest fundraiser we‘ve
ever had. Of course we‘ll do it. The question is...‖ She turned languidly toward Katherine and raised her
eyebrows. ―How would you like to be my assistant?‖
Katherine swallowed. Victoria was smiling smugly, as if she had just offered her the crown
jewels and half of Delaware. A sudden wave of nausea threatened to propel Katherine off the table. ―Oh, I
don‘t think...‖
―That you‘d be competent? Don‘t be silly. I‘ll tell you everything you have to do.‖
―Yes, but—‖
―I just had another idea,‖ Victoria said in her most velvety voice. ―Maybe we could use your place
for the showhouse!‖ she shrieked, apparently thrilled with her own brilliance. ―Wouldn‘t that be amazing?‖
―Wha... what?‖ Katherine‘s voice sounded dull, numbed. Her heart felt as if it had stopped
beating altogether, then began to pound, slowly and inexorably as a tribal drum. The lioness had sniffed out
her prey.
―It would increase the value of your house,‖ Victoria said, allowing a note of studied practicality
into her voice. ―Not that it needs a lot of attention, of course. Your home is lovely, in a conventional sort of
way. But a showhouse always sells for at least thirty percent above market value. It becomes a landmark,
dear. And you must admit, the place could use a bit of a facelift.‖ She arched her eyebrows and cocked her
head in a lets-be-frank gesture.
Katherine laughed, or tried to. What came out was a sort of soft twittering sound, like otters
communicating underwater. ―Actually, I hadn‘t thought...‖ She knew she was in deep water. ―…about
selling...‖
―No?‖ Victoria shifted her head. She was circling for the kill. ―Funny. I thought I‘d heard
something about your leaving Richard.‖
The strike had been made. Katherine gave a little grunt as she felt the blow.
―Which would be perfectly understandable, of course,‖ Victoria went on smoothly. ―He‘s been
gone so very long. What could you possibly have in common at this point?‖
Katherine tried to keep perfectly still, but could not stop the tears that clogged her nose. Mucus ran
out of her like blood from a felled beast. She sniffed.
―Oh, you poor thing,‖ Victoria said, eyes glinting with triumph. ―You can tell me. I don‘t mind
listening, really.‖
At that moment, Bebe slapped her resoundingly on her rear. ―Ow!‖ Victoria twisted around
angrily.
―Helps the circulation,‖ Bebe said, continuing to slap and pound Victoria‘s buttocks. The other
masseuse‘s eyes were wide with astonishment.
―I don‘t care, you idiot!‖ Victoria bellowed. ―Stop that right now!‖
―Sorry, Mrs. Tanner.‖
―It was almost as if she were attacking me,‖ Victoria said to Katherine, as if Bebe were not
present. ―Anyway, the showhouse.‖ She smiled. ―Entre nous—‖
―I think she‘s asleep, ma‘am,‖ Bebe said.
―What?‖
Katherine instantly closed her eyes.
―Let her rest,‖ Bebe said to the other masseuse while holding up a towel for Victoria.
―Aromatherapy?‖ she inquired perkily.
(Extra Space)
There was an arrangement of cut flowers from the best florist in town on Bebe‘s kitchen counter
when she got home.
―They‘re for you,‖ Cynthia said.
Bebe looked at the note and burst out laughing. ―Katherine Davis sent them,‖ she said. ―She came
in for a massage with everyone‘s favorite real estate agent.‖
―Figures.‖ Cynthia‘s voice was even more abrasive than usual, a balloon being rubbed against
hair.
―She looked terrified when she saw me, as if I was going to spill her secret to Creeperella.‖
―Her secret? You mean that she‘s been degraded to the status of trailer park trash?‖
―No, and that‘s not what we are, either,‖ Bebe said pointedly. ―I meant that that she‘s run off with
her lover to hide out here.‖
Cynthia shrugged. ―Same thing. Your take‘s just different.‖
Bebe frowned at her in puzzlement. ―You all right, Cyn?‖
―I‘m fine.‖ Cynthia picked up a copy of Diver Magazine, leafed through it without seeing any of
the pages, then put it down with a slap. ―Actually, now that you ask, I‘m not fine.‖
Bebe made a noise that conveyed absolutely her regret at having asked. ―I should have known,‖
she said with a sigh. ―All right, what is it now?‖
―What it is, now,‖ Cynthia repeated with great exaggeration, ―Is that I don‘t really appreciate your
great new relationship with some straight woman.‖
―Oh, for God‘s sake,‖ Bebe said. ―I told you, Katherine sent me these flowers as hush money.‖
―Doesn‘t it bother you that she‘s ashamed to be living in the same place as you?‖
―That‘s not it at all. Katherine got railroaded into being with the witch—‖
―Katherine‘s old enough to take care of herself,‖ Cynthia said. ―It‘s just that she doesn‘t, because
there‘s always some lovestruck fool to take care of her.‖
―Like me? Is that what you‘re saying?‖ Bebe‘s cheeks were blushing in the extravagant way that
used to make her photographs pop out of the page like a summer day.
―I know her type,‖ Cynthia snapped. ―She‘s decorative, and that‘s the most that can be said for
her. She does nothing with her life except look pretty. And she does nothing for the planet at all—‖
―Oh, dry up,‖ Bebe said, turning on the television. ―Like you‘ve done so much for the frigging
planet.‖
―What?‖ Cynthia‘s expression was one of undisguised outrage. ―How can you say that after I‘ve
spent years helping Native Americans—‖
―Jesus, not that again.‖
―Yes! And making art!‖ She held her hands up in front of her. ―I make art with these! I build
gardens!‖
―You sell neoprene wet suits,‖ Bebe reminded her.
―That‘s just my job! I‘m more than my job, you know.‖ Cynthia‘s eyes were glistening with tears.
―You‘re just making fun of me.‖ Her lower lip trembled. ―Like you always do.‖
Bebe turned up the volume on the television. WHEEL OF FORTUNE was on.
―Not everybody can be a high fashion model,‖ Cynthia said.
―Is that what I do for a living?‖ Bebe asked, thunking her size ten feet encased in white uniform
shoes on the coffee table. ―Sorry, I must‘ve gotten confused.‖
―You don‘t have to work as a massage therapist!‖ Cynthia screeched.
Bebe waved her away. She didn‘t want to hear it.
Cynthia bowed her head. Her arms hung limply at her sides. ―You don‘t care about us,‖ she
whined.
No answer.
―Well, I don‘t care, either. You‘re right. My hands aren‘t good for anything except marking down
price tags. Who cares if they‘re ruined?‖
―What are you talking about?‖ Bebe asked irritably, but her attention was drawn to the television
show. ―WALKING ON AIR!‖ she shouted.
―What?‖
―On WHEEL OF FORTUNE, the block letters turned one by one to reveal the puzzle:
WALKING ON AIR.
―Yesss!‖ Bebe hissed triumphantly.
Cynthia burst into tears and ran out into the night.
Chapter Eighteen
Cynthia
Having forgotten to turn on the outside light before exiting the trailer, Cynthia spent some time
stumbling around in the dark looking for something with which to ruin her artist‘s hands.
The trouble was, no one had ever recognized her contributions because she had not touted herself.
While Bebe Butler was being the darling of the New York dance club scene, Cynthia Ross had driven from
her hometown of Manadee, Wisconsin to a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. ―To help,‖ as she
had explained to the first Native American she‘d encountered.
Cynthia thought the man looked like a wise tribal elder. He was, in reality, the village drunk, and
believed that Cynthia was a prostitute soliciting business from him.
After fighting him off in the middle of a busy intersection, a police officer intervened. Following
two hours at the police station, Cynthia was directed to the offices of the Native American Assistance
Foundation, an organization dedicated to aiding Native Americans living on reservation land.
She got a volunteer job as a fry cook at the local community center. While this position did not
quite line up with Cynthia‘s fantasy, in which she apprenticed with an ancient medicine man in the timehonored ways of healing with herbs and spiritual incantations, she was at least working among what she
thought of as Real Indians.
At the community center, her pocketbook was stolen twice, her car was spray painted with the
Lakota word for monkey, she dropped a basket dripping with hot grease on her arm, and the head cook—a
woman who knew a fool when she saw one—scheduled her to work a minimum of eighty hours a week
without pay.
Even so, Cynthia managed to maintain her optimism, seeking out Wise Elders wherever she found
them. One was a potter who permitted her to buy several pitchers and bowls from him. Another was a
young mother who showed her how to prepare fry bread in the authentic style of her ancestors in exchange
for babysitting her six children. The third and greatest of her teachers was a young brave whose name was
Duwayne but who insisted that Cynthia refer to him either as Naked Eagle or, when they spent time with
his friends, Mighty Man-Stick.
Duwayne offered, without Cynthia‘s asking, to take her into the pine mountains in order to show
her how to invoke the Great Spirit.
It was during the second of these invocations that the Mighty Man-Stick appeared in all its glory.
In a rapture of religious fervor, Duwayne (who had quickly transformed into Naked Eagle) drew Cynthia to
him in a passionate embrace.
She had not known how to proceed. On the one hand, she reasoned, Duwayne must not be made
to feel a if she were rejecting him for his ethnic background; while on the other, her thoughts raced back to
the three other times in her life that she had participated in sexual congress.
(Extra Space)
The first was with her date for her high school prom, whose extreme rapidity had prevented any
actual penetration. The second, a fellow ecology major at the University of Minnesota, had closed his eyes
at the outset and galloped himself to climax shouting, ―Take my seed! Make my baby!‖ before a single
horizontal caress had passed between them. The third was a young man named Alvar Swenson, a Lutheran
blue-eyed blond who had worked with her in the Department of Environmental Services at the State House
in St. Paul during the year after her college graduation.
Cynthia had sex with Alvar three times—all acceptable, if not memorable, occasions—before he
revealed to her that he was married. But that was all right, he hastened to explain, because he and his wife
―swung,‖ and would Cynthia care to swing with them in what promised to be an interesting evening?
She had been struck dumb. Not with hurt, exactly, since she had never really felt one way or the
other about Alvar. She had gone to bed with him more out of politeness than passion, and had been
pleasantly reassured when he had not shouted exhortations at her during ejaculation. All in all, she had
come to regard sex with him—with everyone, she supposed—as a moderately enjoyable, if unnoteworthy,
experience.
But this! ―You... you mean me and your... and your wife?‖ She had described an uncertain circle
in the air with her index finger. Alvar had grinned.
Such thoughts had never occurred to Cynthia before. Thoughts of Alvar‘s... wife.
―Is she pretty?‖ she asked timidly.
(Extra Space)
It had been the most thrilling night of her life. Alvar‘s wife was not a Swedish American like
Alvar or Cynthia herself, but a Cuban named Selena, with olive skin as smooth as an opened avocado and
breasts so full and round that when Cynthia kissed their pink-chocolate nipples, she had an orgasm. It was
the first orgasm of her life.
Selena seemed to like it also, which emboldened Cynthia even more. She wallowed like a satyr in
the smell and taste of the woman, oblivious to any feelings of self-consciousness or propriety. She
marveled at the response her hands could bring forth from Selena‘s astonishingly elastic skin, which shrank
and swelled with the touch of Cynthia‘s hands. While she probed Selena‘s wet parts with her tongue,
Cynthia‘s own body quivered with a longing so intense that she thought she would burst.
Alvar tried to join in on several occasions, even producing an enormous red rubber-covered
vibrator at one point, but the women were too enthralled with one another to pay him anything more than
the most cursory attention. When, spitting out an obscenity, he tossed it onto the floor, he was the only one
to see the red phallus bounce onto the vanity table, where it came to rest on top of the radio.
It was only after Cynthia and Selena had come a number of times and lay giggling, arm in arm,
that either of them paid any attention to Alvar, who by then was nearly fully dressed and red-faced with
anger and frustration. His wife, sensing his dismay, tried to cajole him into joining them, but he stubbornly
refused. Cynthia guessed that perhaps Alvar was less of a swinger than he had led her to believe.
With a small sigh, Selena put on a black slip and sidled over to her husband. ―Come on, honey,‖
she crooned into his ear while glancing backward apologetically at Cynthia. ―Let‘s try again, just you and
me.‖ She shrugged, a small movement that only Cynthia could see. Selena‘s eyes were soft with
satisfaction and regret.
Cynthia understood. The party was over. Daddy was home.
―You really looked like you were enjoying yourself,‖ Alvar pouted. In that moment, Cynthia saw
him exactly as he would look in thirty years—stodgy, petulant, dull-witted. He allowed his wife to
manipulate him, through what seemed to Cynthia to be extraordinary effort, into a better mood.
―Oh, that was nothing,‖ Selena said, waving a dismissive hand toward Cynthia, who was still
sitting naked on the bed. ―Hey, we have another bedroom, don‘t we?‖
―Or the shower,‖ Alvar said, wiggling his eyebrows.
―Ooh,‖ Selena responded. She edged him out of the room.
Cynthia waited for some time, not certain about what her next course of action should be. She had
just been seduced by a woman who had, moments after giving Cynthia the single greatest experience of her
life, left her for a pale little man whose fondest desire was, apparently, to make love while washing.
After a half hour had passed, Cynthia reluctantly got dressed and let herself out. She walked back
to her apartment still dazed by what had transpired, still tasting Selena‘s juices in her mouth, still drunk on
the ecstasy of her discovery.
She looked at herself in the mirror in her bedroom. Cynthia was slender, pale, small-breasted,
delicately boned, and fine-featured. With her cloud of curly light brown hair and her long blue eyes, she
would be considered feminine-looking by almost any standard.
But I’m a lesbian, she thought, feeling suddenly, horribly confused. The associations conjured by
that word were out of keeping with the florid joy she had experienced in Selena‘s arms. To Cynthia,
lesbians were strange and dangerous creatures, women who tried to look like men, who got into fistfights
and then, lathered with testosterone-like aggression, strapped on rubber penises like the one Alvar had been
playing with.
Will I become like them? she wondered. Will Selena? Did an act of homosexuality initiate some
kind of deep-seated change that would alter the very core of who she was?
Her hands cupped her own breasts, then trailed languidly down the length of her body, tensing
again with pleasure, soft with readiness, aching in her crotch. Yearning to sin again.
No, no, no! She turned away, turned off the light, put on her pajamas in the dark.
(Extra Space)
Alvar never spoke to her again.
Cynthia accepted this as her due, the penance for her shame. She hoped with all her heart that she
would never encounter Selena or any of the Swensons‘ swinging friends. Her swinging days were behind
her.
Because that was all it had ever been, she realized. Swinging. Experimenting. Being young and
urban and cool and whatever. But enough was enough.
At work, she walked with her head down, cheeks blazing. No one must ever know, she decided.
Even though it was just a silly mistake, even though...
No, not a mistake. It had been a terrible nightmare, in which a bizarre, impossible act that had
nothing to do with her had occurred. Of course she wasn‘t a lesbian, she railed, alone in her apartment at
night, her mirror now draped with several pairs of dirty jeans.
She couldn‘t be a lesbian. She was a Lutheran, for Pete‘s sake! Her family would fall over like
dominoes if they even suspected such a thing. She had two small nieces, her brother‘s kids. What would
they think of her as they got older? Would they speak of her as a member of the dread cadre of women who
dressed like men? And worse, would Cynthia become one of them, her hair cut short and skinned back with
Brylcreem, her feet shod in undersized Florsheims?
To calm her nerves, she signed up for a ceramics course to fill her evenings with something other
than the torture of contemplating her sexuality. She tested herself with the other women there, trying to
discern if they recoiled from her as an obvious pervert. She was not married, after all; that in itself rendered
her suspect although, at 22, she had not reached the age when marriage was critical to social acceptance.
Before the first class, she bought some nail polish and painted her nails a shade called Angel Pink.
To her relief, Cynthia seemed to fit in quite well with the other students. As a bonus, she
discovered that she had a genuine love, if not talent, for ceramics. She created a hanging strawberry pot,
followed by a pitcher in the shape of a chicken. After that, her confidence grew to the point where she
could consider doing something grand. She decided to make a pasta bowl.
After cleaning the detritus off the greenware and then firing it to whiteness, Cynthia chose her
design: The bowl would be a study of tan and pink waves radiating from a point between the center of the
bowl and the outer edge. She would give it to her parents for Christmas, she decided as she signed the
bowl with a flourish. Then she glazed it and turned it over to the instructor for firing.
At the next class, all the pieces were displayed along one wall of the studio. It was the class‘s
custom to study and discuss each piece as if they were works of art worthy of reflection. Cynthia looked
forward to the comments about her bowl, which was the largest piece in the room.
But when the instructor picked it up and then, smiling, turned it so that the interior of the bowl was
visible to all the students, someone gasped. Several tittered. One by one, everyone in the room made some
sort of sound to indicate either embarrassment or amusement. Even the teacher smiled broadly.
―What is it?‖ Cynthia demanded. ―What‘s wrong with my pasta bowl?‖
―Nothing‘s wrong, Miss Ross,‖ the instructor hastened to explain. ―It makes a bold and clear
statement.‖
―It does?‖
―It could be a serving bowl in Judy Chicago‘s Dinner Party,‖ someone said.
―Judy who? Why would she want my bowl?‖
The students howled. ―The reference was to the feminist artist Judy Chicago,‖ the instructor said.
―In her installation, The Dinner Party, famous women in history are represented by place settings at a
dining table.‖
―Oh.‖ A feeling of immense relief and well-being washed over Cynthia. ―It‘s a good thing, then.‖
―That depends on your point of view,‖ an older woman answered. ―Some people take offense at
the fact that the dishes are all painted like vaginas.‖
―What?‖ Cynthia chocked on her own spittle. ―Are you saying that my...‖ Her gaze drifted toward
the undulating pink and tan lines. ―... my bowl...‖
She finally saw it, the thing that everyone else had noticed immediately. The colors, fleshly
brown, Selena‘s chocolate nipples, her soft, responsive tan skin, and the labial pink, hot, explosive,
inviting, all of it surrounding the football-shaped center with its jaunty rose dot at one end.
―Oh, my God,‖ Cynthia whispered.
―Lovely,‖ the instructor said, setting the bowl down and moving toward the next piece. She did
not see Cynthia‘s eyes fill with tears, or her newly painted fingernails dig into her palms with such ferocity
that they broke the skin. She did notice, however, that the young woman with the air of perpetual confusion
had left the group, but assumed that Miss Ross had only gone to the restroom.
She had not entertained the notion that Cynthia had run out of the building and gone to her
apartment, where she packed two suitcases, left a voice mail at work announcing that she was quitting her
job, effective immediately, and began driving westward.
Away, was all she thought at the time, although later she would say that she had responded to a
call deep within her soul to answer the tribal drums of her native land and the people who were its beating
red heart.
As far away from this place as I can get.
(Extra Space)
It had taken her nearly a month to reach the Indian reservation, and nearly a year to end up on a
mountain with Naked Eagle and his red hot Man-Stick pressing against her.
―Please,‖ she said, struggling to extricate herself from his grip. ―I‘m sorry if I gave you the wrong
impression, but I can‘t...‖ She pushed him away. ―I‘m not ready.‖
The young man narrowed his eyes at her.
―I‘m having my period,‖ she lied, wincing as soon as the words were out of her mouth.
―You wouldn‘t know what to do with a real man,‖ Duwayne Mighty Man-Stick said with such
disdain that it fairly dripped from the corners of his downturned mouth.
Cynthia felt her lips trembling. I’m not going to cry, she told herself. He doesn’t know. He can’t.
He’s just a young guy on the make—
―Maybe you like women better,‖ he taunted.
Cynthia wailed. ―Oh, God, you‘ve seen through me!‖ Her voice, never her greatest asset, shrilled
over the hills like a chainsaw. ―What will become of me?‖ she moaned. ―Where do I go now?‖
She looked up imploringly at Naked Eagle, who seemed to have lost all trace of his Lakota male
supremacist persona and could only stare, bewildered and embarrassed, at the crazy woman who was
writhing in shame at his feet.
―Look, you got to pull yourself together,‖ he said.
―I‘m a lesbian,‖ Cynthia heaved.
―Okay, okay.‖ Naked Eagle tried to console her. ―Maybe we should go back to town, okay?‖
―I can‘t face anyone there again.‖
―Sure you can.‖ He tried a hearty smile. ―What‘d you say your name was?‖
―Cynthia,‖ she sobbed.
―Okay. So look on the bright side, er...‖
―Cynthia, goddammit!‖ she screamed. ―Cynthia Ross.‖ She sniffed bitterly. ―Lesbian.‖
―Okay, okay. But you got a job, right?‖
―Sort of. I don‘t get paid for it.‖
―Yeah. Well, it would be better if you got paid.‖
―I was trying to be a good person. But God rejected me anyway.‖
―I don‘t know about that. Could be He don‘t like...‖ He exhaled noisily. ―Well, anyway, there‘s
other people... like you. I mean, you‘re not the only... you know.‖
Cynthia never heard him. Her laments had reached fever pitch.
―What I‘m trying to say is, you ought to go find your own kind, maybe.‖ Duwayne hunched down
next to her so that she could hear him above the sound of her own voice. In a moment of compassion, he
almost put his arm around her, but thought better of it. Should the crazy woman change her mind about her
sexuality, he did not wish for her to come after him for love. ―There‘s got to be a place with more… you
know…‖ He shrugged. ―…than there are here,‖ he said optimistically.
Cynthia was too moved to speak. She thumped her chest.
―Maybe California,‖ he considered. ―I don‘t think they care what you do out there.‖
(Extra Space)
And so Cynthia left the Dakotas for Venice Beach, where she spotted Bebe Butler rollerblading on
the sidewalk.
Cynthia recognized her at once, of course: Bebe had been one of the most famous models of the
nineties. She was also a lesbian.
Cynthia‘s heart thudded as she watched Bebe skate. She rollerbladed well, as Cynthia imagined
she did everything well, with the assurance of the born beauty. The model‘s very public wedding to the
Spanish Countess had been in nearly every magazine Cynthia picked up in those days. Or did I only pick up
the magazines with that story in them? she wondered, her throat drying.
She still remembered the photographs from Bebe‘s and the Countess‘s world honeymoon tour:
Beryl Butler –B.B., as she was known the world over – weeping at a bullfight while the Countess cheered;
B.B. wearing a blue kimono as she walked over a curved Japanese bridge leading to a teahouse in Kyoto;
B.B. drinking beer from a tankard at Munich‘s Octoberfest; B.B. aboard a Chinese junk, ominously alone;
B.B. wrapped in a white sari as she entered a Hindu temple, where she remained for a full year after the
Countess‘s abrupt departure and subsequent marriage to an English rock star.
It had taken years for the photographs to stop inundating the fashion magazines. Even during the
Venice Beach era, when Bebe was heading toward her thirty-fifth birthday and had put on twenty or thirty
pounds since her modeling years, someone was always rushing up to take her picture.
And Cynthia understood why. As she sat watching Bebe, the Perrier in Cynthia‘s hand trembling,
she could actually feel the confidence which was the essence of Bebe Butler‘s charisma. On that day Bebe
had been wearing a funky flowered 1960‘s-style miniskirt and a bikini top. Bright green kneepads bisected
her long athletic legs. Her hair, banded by headphones, streamed out in a thick golden sheet behind her.
Her face was made up of a pair of very dark wraparound sunglasses, a Barbie-doll nose kept from
perfection only by being sunburned, and the sensual, outsized pink lips that had spawned a plastic surgery
gold rush as thousands of women all over America demanded saline injections and other procedures to
emulate Bebe Butler‘s pendulous mouth.
As she skated by the table where Cynthia sat unconsciously shaking her Perrier, Bebe seemed to
leave a trail of stars behind her. Just then, to Cynthia‘s astonishment, Bebe whirled around as if she were
twirling in mid air (the stars behind her coalescing as she did so) and plopped down on the chair beside
Cynthia.
―Mind if I join you?‖ Bebe asked, the wide, friendly mouth revealing a set of perfect milk-fed
teeth.
Cynthia could only stare as Bebe pulled the headphones down over her neck. Her legs were so
long that her blue kneepads were at a level with the tabletop.
―No, ‖ Cynthia said. ―That is, yes. I mean...‖ She set down her water and then immediately
knocked it over. Her face burned. Her lips were dry. And thin, she thought, trying to puff them out. But her
lips parted, and because they were so dry, would not stick together again.
―Are you whistling?‖ Bebe asked.
Tears welled in Cynthia‘s eyes.
Bebe ignored them. ―Bebe Butler,‖ she said, extending her hand. Robotically, Cynthia rasped the
syllables of her own name, sounding as if she were suffering from emphysema.
―Where you from?‖ Bebe asked, smiling.
―Wissisota,‖ Cynthia answered, happy for the first time in her life to be who she was.
(Extra Space)
Cynthia stumbled into the debris-strewn area surrounding Andras and Jazzy Kodaly‘s trailer. The
memory of Cynthia‘s first encounter with Bebe had caused her to trip, shrieking, over a wooden plank.
―What the hell‘s going on?‖ Andras‘ large head with its aureole of wild hair filled the window.
Cynthia screamed again.
―Shut the hell up!‖ Jazzy called from within. A pink maribou-trimmed slipper flew past Andras‘
head and thumped against the window.
―Sorry,‖ Cynthia said miserably. Lying nearby was an axe, one of Andras‘ many rusted and
neglected tools. Cynthia picked it up and headed back toward the trailer she shared with Bebe. Beneath
their bay window was a display of Cynthia‘s pottery, artfully arranged. Bebe had banished the pots from
the interior when they had first bought the trailer together.
―She always hated my art,‖ Cynthia muttered. She lifted the axe into the air, wobbling under its
weight, then brought it down with a crash. ―These hands can create,‖ she intoned, ―and these hands can
destroy.‖
―Jesus Christ!‖ Bebe was standing, arms akimbo, on the stoop in front of the door. ―What exactly
is wrong with you, Cynthia?‖
Tears streamed down Cynthia‘s face. ―I‘m sorry I disturbed your evening by ruining my hands,‖
she wailed.
Bebe made a face. ―What are you talking about?‖
―You don‘t have to be a high fashion model to belong in this universe!‖ Cynthia was crying so
hard that she was choking on her words.
―Don‘t tell me you‘re still going on about that.‖
―Even the most insignificant among us has something to say. I said it with my hands. But you
don‘t care, Bebe. You can‘t acknowledge my contribution.‖
―I‘m going to bed,‖ Bebe said, letting the screen door slam shut behind her.
―Hey, that‘s my axe!‖ Some distance away, Andras‘ face filled his window again.
Cynthia swung the axe, brought it back too far, and fell over backwards.
―What the hell are you doing?‖ Andras stormed, bursting out of his trailer. He was zipping up his
shorts as he lumbered toward her, looking like some exotic species of long-legged bird. The white
racerback undershirt he wore attempted—and failed—to cover his burgeoning belly, which seemed too big
for his spindly legs to support. ―I could call the cops on you,‖ he said, prying the axe easily out of her
hands. ―This here‘s stolen property.‖
―Oh, stuff it,‖ Cynthia mumbled.
―Yeah, I‘ll stuff it,‖ he answered, trying to think of a more properly sarcastic response. When none
came, he sniffed and pointed at Cynthia with the axe. ―So how come you‘re breaking up this trash in the
middle of the night, anyway?‖
Slowly Cynthia surveyed the broken pots. ―That is not trash,‖ she said with hushed outrage. ―It is
art.‖
Andras looked at the pile of shards in bewilderment. ―That ain‘t art,‖ he concluded. ―Now, my
clock, that’s art.‖
―Oh, please.‖ Cynthia curled her lip in exaggerated disdain.
―Hey, did you see all the stuff I got on it?‖ Andras bent down, hands on knees, and grinned into
her face. ―Makes you horny, too.‖ He looked over admiringly at the plastic-encased clock. ―Look, it‘s
going to do its thing now.‖
Indeed, both hands were aligned straight up, and the clock began to strike twelve. The tongue
which had replaced the original cuckoo popped out, wagging from side to side. The red tassles on the
nipples whirled around. The vagina at six opened and closed.
―Ugh,‖ Cynthia said.
―Hell, I thought you‘d love that,‖ Andras offered, ―you being a muff diver and all.‖
―How dare you!‖
―Hold it, hold it. I‘m a muff diver myself!‖ He laughed. ―See, I got nothing against lezzies, though
I got to be honest with you. It‘s a shame to let what you got go to waste, you know? I mean, it‘s like a
plug and a socket. You got to have something that fits. And I don‘t care what you say, there ain‘t nothing a
woman‘s got that going to fit into that—‖
―Please stop,‖ Cynthia said furiously.
―Okay, okay.‖ Andras raised his arms in surrender. I was just trying to make you feel better.‖
―Well, you can stop trying.‖
―No, I can‘t. It‘s my nature. I just can‘t stand to see a woman hurting.‖
―I‘ll live, okay?‖
―You know, I‘ve got an idea,‖ he said conspiratorially. ―If you want to break stuff, you can work
on that pile of wood I got over there.‖ He pointed to an unsightly mound of boards of various sizes. ―I got
that free from a friend of mine. He was pulling down a shed.‖
―What do you want it for?‖ Cynthia asked sullenly.
―Jazzy wants me to build her a thing.‖ He thought for a moment. ―One of them things for growing
roses.‖ He gestured with his hands, erecting an imaginary latticework.
―A trellis?‖
―Yeah.‖
―Out of that?‖ Cynthia regarded the pile of boards with disdain.
―Piece of cake. Hey, I got an idea!‖ He twirled the axe between his callused hands. ―Why don‘t
you help me build it? I‘ll teach you all about wood. You can be a carpenter. That‘d be better than just
smashing stuff, wouldn‘t it?‖
Cynthia thought about it. ―Wood,‖ she whispered, feeling excited at the prospect. She believed in
fate. Perhaps, she thought, this bird-shaped, bird-brained man would lead her to a new destiny. A destiny in
which her artistic inclinations could finally flourish. ―Wood is beautiful. It‘s biodegradable. It‘s of the
earth.‖
―Well, this wood hasn‘t been in the earth for a long time. It‘s off a shed.‖ He walked over to the
pile and picked up a plank. ―See, it‘s got nails sticking out of it and everything.‖
Cynthia rushed back to her trailer and came back with a pot, remarkably still intact, suspended
from a metal chain. ―There,‖ she said, hanging it from the topmost nail. ―Art.‖
―There you go.‖ He propped the plant against the trailer.
Cynthia regarded it thoughtfully. ―It‘s conceptual,‖ she said, frowning. ―The Empty Vessel.‖
―Right,‖ Andras said. ―She wants a cabinet door, too.‖
Chapter Nineteen
Mo
What is the significance of the thousandth life?
There was no answer.
The thousandth powerless life.
Silence.
Does it mean that after I’m dead, you’ll reclaim your power? Will I help you do that by writing
your story? Will you get to go to Nirvana or something? And what about me? Do I start reincarnating into
my own series of powerless lives?
Mo‘s fingers typed the words:
The book is about me.
Wait a second. Who is ME?
Madame Bovary, c’est moi.
Mo inhaled sharply. Who was writing her book?
She had spent five years in therapy determining that she was the sole creative force behind her
work. Before that, she had justified her creativity by convincing herself that some other being, something
she had referred to as the Beast, was what was really doing the work and that Mo herself was no more than
a channel.
That, of course, had been nonsense. The therapist had helped her to understand that Mo could not
own her work because she felt incapable of something so masterful as writing novels. Mo had always been
responsible, diligent, prudent; Desmond had been the brilliant one. Desmond was the one who drew crowds
at cocktail parties. Desmond was always the one who first uttered the witty remark that everyone else
repeated the next day. Mo was with him to make Desmond comfortable, to extract his genius and see that
he got it onto paper. And to have his babies.
She had failed at all those tasks. Instead, she had churned out sixteen novels, which would have
irritated Desmond Owens no end had Mo not insisted that the books were ―channeled‖ through the Beast.
Then Desmond would shake his head, call her a ninny, tell his friends that his wife was a happy hack, and
intimate that he himself had taken more than a casual interest in crafting those books.
So Mo closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Did you have a life before Araiama?
Mo took a sip of coffee. So what if she had to use the device of ―corresponding‖ with her character
to kick-start her subconscious? Whatever worked, worked. ―I am not a channel,‖ she whispered.
One word appeared on the screen.
Yes.
―Perfect,‖ Mo said. The process of writing—of creating anything, Mo supposed—was simply
amazing. It didn‘t come from the brain, that was certain. At least not the part of the brain used for hard
thinking. A psychologist friend had once told Mo that creativity and intellect were two different kinds of
intelligence, which may have accounted for all the brutishly monosyllabic painters she had dated in her
youth.
In her own case, Mo‘s mind—the responsible, diligent, prudent part of it—was only the purifying
filter used at the end of the process. In the first draft, the aptly termed ―rough‖ draft, ideas came flowing in
chunks, like rocks in an avalanche, tumbling, random, much of the material unrelated and unnecessary,
some of it glinting with specks of gold hidden beneath the dirt and lichen.
The trick was to start the avalanche. Unfortunately, there was no formula for that. Each novel got
its raw material in a different way. For one of her earlier books, Mo engaged a hypnotist. For another, an
historical, she had immersed herself in research until the story began to take shape. And now, for The 1000
Lives of Araiama Mari, she was conducting a dialogue with the novel‘s protagonist.
Whatever worked, worked.
What was your name in that previous life?
I’ve told you. Snake Finder.
But that was in your current life. That is, didn’t you say that you were called Snake Finder in
your youth, before you became a priestess and your name was changed to Araiama?
This was starting to get complicated. Maybe forget the Snake Finder part of the story, Mo thought.
No! Snake Finder must remain! She is who I am... Who I was. Do not discard her.
Mo drank her coffee. It was cold.
She chewed on an eraser, then set it down and attacked the
keyboard.
What about your other lives? The ones that came after Araiama. The other cursed lives.
Well, let me see. I was a woman, quite young, who died of plague at the age of nineteen.
And a village idiot. I was once a self-pitying martyr of a wife. Married to a drunkard. And
a fat man who never found the courage to bed a woman. Stupid lives.
―So you‘re saying that people can live more than one life in a single lifetime? She didn‘t type the
words.
Was this one of the useless rocks from the avalanche, dross that would have no place in the story
she was writing, or was it a pivotal idea? It was so hard to tell.
―Dross.‖ It was Araiama‘s voice.
Mo whirled around in her chair. The old woman was sitting ramrod-straight as usual, in Mo‘s
favorite velvet easy chair. ―Who we were never matters. Only who we are.‖
Seeing her character in the flesh was no longer so terrifying as it had been. Mo realized that
Araiama‘s ―manifestation,‖ or whatever it was, was merely an extension of her submergence into her work,
a part of the artist‘s particular brand of madness.
Right now Mo was exploring her own powerlessness in the face of her dead marriage. She knew
that. But the old woman still pissed her off.
―I suppose my life doesn‘t mean any more that that village idiot‘s,‖ she said.
Araiama shrugged eloquently
Mo sighed. ―My husband‘s getting married again,‖ she said. ―I read about it in Vanity Fair. The
bride-to-be is twenty eight years old.‖
―I see,‖ Araiama said.
―It‘s as if I never existed.‖
There was a long silence. Mo turned back to the keyboard, trying to think of something to ask that
related to her book. Naturally, she reasoned, her character would have nothing to say about any bleatings
concerning Mo‘s personal life. Nevertheless, it seemed odd to write to someone who was, in some
demented dimension, sitting three feet away from her.
―Perhaps you would be less tiresome if you looked better,‖ Araiama offered.
Mo bristled. ―What‘s wrong with the way I look?‖
The old woman arched an eyebrow. ―What‘s wrong?‖ she repeated incredulously. ―You‘re
wearing pantaloons, for one thing.‖
Mo looked down at her trousers. They were tan gabardine Donna Karans, quite acceptable in most
circles. ―Everyone wears pants these days.‖
―Well, you shouldn‘t. They make you look silly. And your hair.‖ She tossed up her hands with a
flutter. ―If you insist on chopping it off at the bottom, at least put some flowers in it.‖
―Flowers?‖
―Flowers belong in a woman‘s hair. That‘s where they look best. Just a moment. I‘ll show you.‘
She opened the sliding doors and stepped outside, where a bank of daffodils were in riotous bloom. She
came back with a handful, which she wove into a circlet, then placed it on Mo‘s head with a smile.
―There,‖ she said.
Mo looked at herself in a small mirror. ―Oh, come on,‖ she said.
―And this.‖ Araiama whipped a large Indian silk scarf off the wall, where it served to hide a large
crack.
―What am I supposed to do with this?‖ Mo asked.
―Shhh.‖ Araiama dropped the cloth around one of Mo‘s shoulders and tied it. Then she rummaged
through the coat closet and found a long mohair scarf that she tied around Mo‘s waist. From this belt she
hung various ornaments, including a drapery tieback, a suncatcher shaped like a star, and a silver
bookmark.
―What the hell are you doing?‖ Mo snapped.
―Dear, this is Beltane, the festival of spring, when the dead return to life.‖
―What‘s that supposed to mean?‖ Mo tightened her lips.
―How unattractive you make yourself,‖ Araiama said with wonder. ―It means that you, too, Mari
Owens, must return to the living.‖
Mo‘s reflection in the mirror blurred with angry tears. Return to the living, yes, that was good, just
exactly what a make-believe fairy godmother was supposed to say. Except that it was a crock. Her husband
was gone, her career was in shambles. She was surrounded by unstable people living illegally on her
property. And to top it all off, she was crying over a conversation she was having with a nonexistent being
while dressed like a Christmas tree. ―Oh, God, look at me,‖ Mo said miserably.
The door swung open. ―Look at you!‖ Henya exclaimed.
With one motion, Mo snatched the flowers off her head while pulling off her mohair belt.
―No, keep them on. You look great. Oh.‖ She laughed. ―Funny. Those clothes on the couch looked
like a person.‖
―Mo swallowed. ―What kind of person?‖
Henya laughed harder. ―I don‘t know. It was just a pile of clothes. You know how something can
look like something else when you‘re not really expecting to see anything.‖
―A woman?‖
Henya hesitated. ―Well...‖ She smiled nervously. ―It was an optical illusion, Mo.‖ She brightened.
―Actually, I just came to borrow a cup of sugar. Really. I didn‘t think people did that in real life, but Elsie‘s
cooking up a storm—‖
―Elsie‘s cooking?‖
―She‘s gotten better, really. She wants to make up for the terrible food she made for her husband‘s
funeral. These are all her own recipes, not Niall‘s. The picnic‘s sort of her coming out party.‖
―What picnic?‖
Henya pretended to punch Mo‘s nose. ―Haven‘t you been paying any attention at all? The Elysian
Fields Spring Picnic. I thought that‘s what your getup was about. We‘ve all been working on it for weeks.
Kathleen and and Forrest bought a whole smoked salmon. Cynthia and Andras made two picnic tables.‖
―Cynthia and Andras?‖
―Go figure.‖ Henya giggled. ―Anything can happen here in fairyland.‖ She took the wreath out of
Mo‘s grip and put it on her head. ―Come on. You‘ve been cooped up in here too long. And you‘re certainly
dressed for it.‖ She took Mo‘s hand and began to lead her out, but stopped halfway to the door. ―Thanks for
letting me stay here,‖ she said.
Mo shrugged. ―Personally, I think you would have had a better time at Yellowstone.‖
―I wouldn‘t have friends at Yellowstone,‖ Henya said shyly.
―Right. I keep forgetting, this is the social hub of Beltsville.‖
―It‘s the most fun I‘ve ever had in my life.‖ She gave Mo‘s hand a squeeze. ―Come on.‖
On her way out, Mo glanced back at the room, searching for traces of Araiama.
There were none.
Chapter Twenty
Chorus
Elsie‘s trailer smelled like a five star restaurant. ―I can‘t believe how good these are,‖ Charlie said,
popping a mushroom stuffed with sherry-soaked sundried tomatoes into his mouth.
―Easy, son,‖ Elsie said, drizzling caramel onto a ten-inch-high cake. The table was already laden
with herbed scones, baked onions, a leek salad, and a berry clafouti.
―Why didn‘t you ever cook like this before, Ma?‖ Charlie asked.
―Elsie thought of the thousands of bad meals she‘d made, dutifully following her husband‘s
recipes. ―I didn‘t know how,‖ she said with a shrug. ―Oh, I wanted to. I‘d cut out recipes from the
newspaper and try them out once in a while, but your father didn‘t like to eat a lot of new things. So I‘d
take cookbooks out of the library.‖
―And never use them?‖
―I‘d think about them,‖ she said.
―But...‖ Charlie ate another mushroom. ―If you‘d cooked like this...‖
―If I‘d cooked like this, your father would have said I was trying to show him up, or spend too
much money on ingredients, or God knows what. He was the cook. I was his helper. And that worked fine.
I wasn‘t about to go looking for trouble, if you know what I mean.‖
Charlie looked out the window, no longer hungry. Niall Nolan had been a selfish, abusive drunk
who‘d beaten Charlie and his mother into resentful submission. Charlie had left home the day after his high
school graduation, and had rarely returned until his father‘s death fourteen years later.
―Well, it doesn‘t do any good to be hard on the poor soul now. And I didn‘t have to let him run the
roost the way I did. It was just the way things were done back then. Women didn‘t do whatever they
wanted. They listened to their husbands. At least I did, for good or not.‖
―Yeah, I know,‖ Charlie said.
―It was funny how we got started. Niall wasn‘t a natural born cook, you know.‖
―I think I figured that out,‖ Charlie said.
―He was just out of the army and was looking for some kind of permanent work. I was cleaning
houses then, so that was pretty steady, but your dad just couldn‘t seem to hold down a job anywhere. He
worked in a gas station for a while, then he tried his hand at house painting. You know, this and that.‖ She
sighed, smiling, remembering what must have been a different past from the one Charlie recollected.
That was one of the things that had driven Charlie away. Not his father‘s abuse, or his
drunkenness or belligerence, but his mother‘s acceptance of those things as if they were the natural order.
Once he had tried to stop Niall from punching Elsie, and Elsie had screamed at the boy to mind his own
business. Charlie had stepped away, astonished. His father had given him a narrow-eyed glance of
righteous satisfaction, then turned back to Elsie and given her a black eye, which she later attributed to
walking into a door.
―But then things really got bad, and Niall went to work at a diner. He didn‘t want to do it at first,
didn‘t think it was right work for a man and all, but there wasn‘t much choice about it. It was either the
diner, or we‘d have to live on what I made cleaning houses. So he took it. And wouldn‘t you know, he liked
cooking. It wasn‘t long before we were making spaghetti for the VFW, and frying up fish sandwiches for
bingo night at St. Anthony‘s.‖
―Shit food,‖ Charlie muttered. ―Considering what you could have done—‖
Elsie threw a spatula at him. ―Don‘t you disrespect your father!‖ she shouted.
The spatula hit the door just as it opened. ―Now, now,‖ Henya said, deflecting the missile with
her forearm. Mo, walking behind her, crouched.
―Henrietta,‖ Elsie cooed. ―We‘ve missed you. Isn‘t that right, Charlie?‖ She looked dotingly at her
son.
Charlie reddened uncomfortably. He was a big man, with unfashionably long hair and the
beginnings of a paunch. But to Elsie, he was the most handsome male specimen for a hundred miles in
every direction.
―You stop that, Elsie,‖ Henya said. ―Besides being too young for me, you might have noticed that
your son is the wrong color.‖
Elsie giggled. While Niall was alive, she would never have joked with a colored person. Or even
had one in her living quarters, if she valued her life. Niall had hated black people.
Niall had been wrong about a lot of things.
―Color don‘t mean anything these days,‖ proclaimed Elsie. Charlie blinked. His father would
never have tolerated any such talk.
―Besides, any young man as good looking as Charlie here‘s bound to have a girlfriend,‖ Henya
teased. ―Isn‘t that right?‖
―Oh, he‘s got one of those all right,‖ Elsie said as if they had been talking about tumors. ―Nadine,
or whatever.‖
―Naomi,‖ Charlie corrected.
Elsie sniffed. ―Whatever. Thinks she‘s too good for the likes of us.‖
―That‘s not true, Mom—‖
―Works for the newspaper.‖ Elsie directed her remarks exclusively at Henya. ―Very hoity toity,
that one.‖
―Can I help?‖ Mo interrupted.
―Oh, I didn‘t even see you,‖ Elsie said, brushing the end of her nose as if she were reluctantly
pulling herself away from thoughts of the hoity-toity Naomi.
―Hey, Mo, you look fantastic,‖ Charlie said, beaming. ―Kind of like the old hippie days, huh?‖
Mo smiled wanly. She had, in fact, worn garlands of flowers in her hair back in the day when
Watergate was the perennial news lead. When the Beatles ran the world, and Bob Dylan was God. When
Mo‘s male contemporaries were either planning to spend the rest of their lives in college, or in exile in
Canada.
When Charlie Nolan was three years old.
And he had a girlfriend, too, she thought.
Not that it mattered. Of course not. And that piece of information had nothing to do with the
sudden descent of depression and shame into Mo‘s bowels.
(Extra Space)
―Eww, garlic!‖ Jazzy bellowed upon tasting the lentil salad. ―Honestly, the food was better at the
funeral home.‖
―Right,‖ Andras said. ―And you‘re twenty nine years old.‖ He bellylaughed as if this were the
funniest thing he‘d ever said. Jazzy ignored him. ―Well, I guess I‘m going in,‖ he sighed.
Cynthia gave Jazzy a dirty look. ―No, you don‘t have to—‖
―In the lake, lady,‖ Andras said, removing his belt. ―Somebody‘s got to inaugurate the lake, don‘t
they?‖ His expression was wide-eyed and eager.
―Don‘t be stupid,‖ Jazzy said.
―Hey, it‘s the first swim of the season!‖ He whipped off his jeans to reveal a pair of red silk shorts
sporting a design of Christmas lights. ―Jazzy got me these. Remember, honey?‖
Jazzy lit a cigarette.
―Anybody want to join me? Last chance!‖ Andras shouted. ―Okay, here goes!‖ He cantered off
toward the lake.
―Fool‘s going to freeze his weenie off,‖ Elsie said.
―Oh, my god.‖ Bebe shot up. ―Weenies. I forgot the hot dogs. I‘ll be right back.‖
―Eww, hot dogs,‖ Jazzy said, picking tobacco off the end of her tongue. ―Meat. Ick.‖
Katherine gave her a hard stare. ―I‘ll help you,‖ she said, joining Bebe.
―She doesn‘t need any help!‖ Cynthia shrilled. When she saw that everyone was staring at her, she
added, ―I mean, how many people does it take to bring out a package of hot dogs, anyway?‖
―Meow,‖ Jazzy said quietly.
―Oh, meow yourself,‖ Cynthia said. She started to get up, but Ned put his hand on her shoulder.
―I like your trellis,‖ he said.
Cynthia smiled waveringly. Her first project with Andras was now covered with climbing roses.
―Good for the bees,‖ she said.
He patted her shoulder and stood up.
―You‘re not going, are you?‖ Cynthia asked, stricken.
―Got to. Work.‖ He waved to the others. Cynthia scrambled to her feet.
―I‘ll walk a while with you,‖ she said.
―Still nervous?‖ he asked once they were away from the crowd.
―What do you mean?‖
―With the others. With Jazzy.‖
―I‘m not nervous around her. I just think she‘s an idiot.‖
―Okay, forget I said anything. Hey, why don‘t you go swimming? Show Andras up.‖
―Are you kidding? The lake‘s freezing.‘
―Wear a wet suit. Surely you must have one, working in a dive shop.‖
―Well, yes...‖
―You‘d feel better.‖
She smiled. ―Maybe so.‖
―And Cynthia?‖ Ned raised his eyebrows. ―Bebe‘s not going to get anywhere with Katherine.‖
―I know that,‖ she said.
(Extra Space)
While Cynthia flapped toward the lake in her wetsuit and flippers, Jazzy began to dance. The
music emanating from her trailer was as otherworldly as her costume, which was a sort of neo-Renaissance
outfit made of gold and gossamer.
―Where does she get those clothes?‖ Henya wondered aloud.
Beside her, Forrest McCormick twirled his wine in its glass. ―Circe,‖ he whispered. ―She‘s an
enchantress. The queen of the fairies.‖
―I thought Circe was a pig,‖ Henya said.
Forrest laughed, as if shaken abruptly out of an hypnotic trance. ―No. She turned the men who
listened to her song into pigs.‖
―Maybe you should remember that.‖
―What?‖
―And also that she‘s Mrs. Kodaly.‖
He blinked. ―What an odd thing to say.‖
―Well, I didn‘t mean to be meddlesome,‖ Henya said, but she was sure that Forrest hadn‘t heard
her. He was watching Jazzy again, the swirling wine in his glass the only motion in his vicinity.
―Do you want some more food, Forrest?‖
He didn‘t answer.
―I‘ll just take your plate, then,‖ she said, getting up and heading toward Elsie‘s trailer, tidying up
as she went.
And Forrest sank back into his canvas chair, the strange rhythm of the music falling like kisses on
his ears while Jazzy spun languidly, just out of reach.
He might have sat like that forever if a pair of knees had not entered his field of vision. Slowly,
ever so slowly, they came into focus beneath a pair of pink shorts.
―Forrest, are you drunk?‖ Katherine asked.
He swallowed. He choked. Suddenly he felt as if he had produced a sea of sputum. ―No, not at
all,‖ he managed.
―Well, here, then.‖ Irritably, Katherine enfolded a hot dog in a bun and yanked it off the stick. ―I
cooked this for you.‖
―Oh,‖ Forrest said, taking it, although he was not even slightly hungry. ―Er, thank you.‖ He bit
obligingly into the frankfurter, then washed it down with the dregs of his wine.
(Extra Space)
Mo did not know how she ended up next to Charlie Nolan, or why he was telling her about his
problems with his girlfriend.
―It‘s just that Naomi‘s making such a success of her life,‖ he was saying. ―Getting bylines and
stuff. She‘s getting to be a big deal at the paper.‖
―I‘ve seen her name,‖ Mo said, wanting to scream. I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER! When had she
become the person young men chose to talk with about their love lives? Was it so long ago that her picture
had appeared in Vogue?
It had only been a small photo in the socialites section in the back of the magazine, and Desmond
had known the photographer, but nonetheless, Mo hadn‘t looked bad. The occasion had been a charity ball,
and Desmond‘s parents—elderly but still enmeshed in the New York social scene—had sent tickets. Mo
wore a navy blue Oscar de la Renta with a huge ruffle running from the plunging back to the floor.
Desmond, propped up by well wishers for the picture, was so drunk by the time the affair was over that he
had to be carried to the back seat of their car, which was almost completely out of gas. Mo had been
obliged to stop at a self-service pump in front of a Roy Rogers, where a young man had approached her as
she filled the tank dressed in the gown and a fur coat and diamonds. About the time she was convinced that
the man was going to rob her, knock her out cold, and steal the car with Desmond lying unconscious in the
back seat, the young man put his hand over his heart and said, ―I think I‘m in love.‖
―Thank you,‖ she had muttered, realizing as she breathed in a pong of gasoline fumes that she had
been holding her breath. The young man walked away.
How long ago had that been? Have I changed so much? Mo wondered. She must have. No man
had so much as noticed her existence since she and Desmond separated. Somehow, between that day at the
gas station in front of Roy Rogers and this, she had transformed from maiden to mother, from half of a
fashionable couple to a lonely middle-aged woman sitting on a rusted lawn chair in a trailer park.
―Meanwhile, I‘ve just sort of gotten stuck where I am,‖ Charlie went on, ―working in the music
store and playing gigs at night. Even the gigs aren‘t that often anymore. I‘m getting too old, I guess.‖
Mo‘s breath caught. How old was Charlie, thirty one? Thirty two?
―Hey, listen to me,‖ Charlie said apologetically. ―I mean don‘t listen to me. I‘ve got to be the most
boring guy in the world. Sorry.‖
Mo shrugged. ―Sometimes things don‘t work out the way we want them to.‖
―Yeah.‖ In the distance, a woman‘s voice was singing over a complex amalgam of middle-eastern
rhythms. Jazzy was dancing. ―I used to dream about fronting a band like Guns & Roses. Making videos and
touring around the world.‖ He laughed.
―Do you still want that?‖
Charlie looked thoughtful. ―No. No, I really don‘t. I guess that‘s the problem. I‘m still living that
leftover dream that I don‘t have anymore. That I don‘t even want.‖
Mo swallowed. What does half a couple do?
―Where do you get your creativity?‖ Charlie asked. It was an imbecilic question, small talk at its
worst. Fortunately, Andras pulled everyone‘s attention by coming into the circle, spraying water in all
directions like a shaggy dog. He was holding a number of dead frogs in his hands.
―Eww,‖ Jazzy shrieked, her scarves billowing around her.
―They‘re just frogs,‖ Andras said.
Cynthia ran, panting, behind him, her flippers splashing mud. ―Mutant frogs,‖ she said
breathlessly. ―Look, they‘re all missing eyes and legs.‖
―Gross,‖ Jazzy said.
Bebe cocked her head. ―What would make that happen?‖
―Pollution,‖ Cynthia answered ferociously. ―Frogs are one of the main harbingers of a poisoned
atmosphere. Mutant frogs are turning up in more and more places. They‘re a sign that we‘re poisoning the
planet.‖
―The question is,‖ Andras intoned, holding up a handful of frogs, ―who here is poisoning the
planet?‖
There was a silence. Jazzy giggled nervously. Cynthia narrowed her eyes at her.
―You know, I remember something.‖ It was Elsie, coming through the crowd to get a better look
at the frogs. ―About twelve years ago, a house fell into the lake.‖
―A house?‖ Mo asked.
―That‘s right. Used to be up on top of the cliff there.‖ She pointed to the high ridge on the northern
side of the lake. ―A whole section of the cliff just fell off one day. It was in the paper for a long time.‖
―Yeah,‖ Charlie said. ―I think there was some kind of legal fight about who was to blame.
Nobody lived there.‖
―Who owned the property?‖ Mo asked, wary.
―That was the problem. The last owner moved away more than a hundred years ago to go out west,
and got killed or something. Anyway, there weren‘t any descendents or whatever. Nobody ever stayed in
that house except for bums and kids looking for a place to party. It just kind of slipped through the cracks
in the town records. Don‘t worry, you don‘t own that land.‖
―What used to be land, you mean,‖ Elsie said. ―That was quite a chunk that fell in.‖
―There was probably a septic tank on it,‖ Cynthia said as if she were a detective on a case.
―More like a still,‖ Elsie said with a chuckle. Some squatters moved in for a while. Strange
fellows. I‘m pretty sure they was making moonshine. Never found out, though.‖
―What about when they dredged the lake?‖
Elsie looked blank.
Bebe spoke. ―Someone took the stuff out of the lake, didn‘t they?‖
―Well, let me see. Some people from the county came around, I remember. Afterward the park
owners put some chemicals or something in the water. Told us we couldn‘t use the lake all summer, and
raised our rents on top of it. Oh, I was seeing red, I‘ll tell you. Bunch of folks moved out—‖
―But no one took the house out of the lake?‖ Bebe asked, incredulous.
―Or the septic tank,‖ Cynthia added with an air of dull despair.
―Or the still,‖ Mo added.
Jazzy turned to Andras, her hands on her hips. ―And you went swimming in it,‖ she said.
―Where‘s Ned?‖ Mo asked. ―Maybe he knows something about this.‖
―Work,‖ Cynthia said.
―Where‘s he work?‖
―Bebe shrugged. ―Nobody knows. We figure he‘s a man whore.‖
Elsie gave a little squeal of protest.
―That‘s not funny,‖ Cynthia said.
―I thought it was,‖ Andras said.
Bebe didn‘t hear him. ―Nothing‘s funny to you,‖ she said to Cynthia.
―Well, these sure aren‘t,‖ Cynthia said, grabbing the frogs out of Andras‘ hands.
―Eww,‖ Jazzy said.
(Extra Space)
―All right, clear out,‖ Ned announced to the last stragglers of the night. They were always the
same: Fat Jimmy, Bryce Conran, who was rich enough to hang out at better places than General Grant‘s
Tomb but didn‘t, Ronnie Specter, whose real name wasn‘t Specter, but who dressed like a Ronnette for the
drag show on Saturday nights at General Grant‘s, and Jose, who was Ronnie‘s lover, manager, and
sometimes pimp.
―Let‘s go, ladies and gentlemen!‖ Ned clapped his hands.
―Oh, God, he‘s in control freak mode,‖ Ronnie said.
―I could get into that,‖ Bryce slurred. ―If it weren‘t Ned.‖ He brayed, looking around the bar for
approval.
―Whatever,‖ Ned said. ―Just go.‖
―Tired old thing.‖
Ronnie fixed a loose false eyelash. ―Does Neddie got to get back to Mommy‘s trailer park?‖ she
asked innocently.
―You know my mother moved to Florida more than a year ago,‖ Ned said. ―With my father.‖
―Hallelujah,‖ Fat Jimmy said, rolling his eyes. ―So when are you going to stop acting as if they‘re
watching your every move?‖
Bryce groaned. ―Is that what you learned in twenty years of therapy, Jimmy?‖
―Go,‖ Ned repeated, opening the door and clapping his hands. Ronnie sniffed haughtily as she
exited. Jose slapped her satin-clad bottom. Fat Jimmy took Ned‘s hands in his own and looked earnestly
into his eyes. ―I meant that, Ned.‖
―Right,‖ Ned said, gently extricating himself from Jimmy‘s hopeful grip. ―Get some sleep, man.‖
―Yeah, man,‖ Bryce intoned in a deep baritone.
―Shut up,‖ Jimmy said.
―Night, guys.‖ Ned closed the door, washed the last of the glasses, wiped down the bar, turned out
the lights, and locked up. Jimmy was waiting in the parking lot. Ned waved to him.
―Hey, you feel like—‖ Jimmy began. Ned shook his head. Reluctantly, Jimmy started his car and
drove away.
When Ned got home, there was a note on his door.
Please call Mo.
(Extra Space)
―Actually, I think a relative of mine used to own that place,‖ Ned said. ―A long time ago. My
grandfather sold the land up on the cliff when he was still a young man. The house belonged to his mother
then. My great-grandmother. I don‘t know what happened to whoever bought it.‖ He shrugged. ―Nobody
was in it when the house fell into the lake, though.‖
―Were you here when that happened?‖
―Yes,‖ Ned said, looking ashamed. ―The lake got to looking pretty nasty. There was a lot of
debris.‖
―And a still,‖ Mo added.
―Maybe. I heard things, but I didn‘t know for sure. My parents wouldn‘t talk to me about it. I
guess they figured that if they didn‘t mention it, the thing would just go away.‖
―That seems to be sort of what happened.‖
―Yeah, after a while,‖ Ned said. ―A lot of county officials came around for a couple of months,
though.‖
―And then?‖
Ned exhaled. ―And then they named their price.‖
―A bribe?‖
―Lots of bribes. It almost broke my parents to pay them all off...‖ He looked up at Mo guiltily.
―They didn‘t tell you that, did they?‖
―No,‖ she said. ―So the lake was never cleaned up after the house fell in it.‖
―Well, it was. Officially, anyway. They pumped the lake full of chlorine bleach—a truckload,
actually. While the county guys weren‘t looking.‖
―On purpose.‖
―Yeah. And then my parents called them in and they did a water test. It tested clean.‖
―Because it was chock full of chlorine.‖
―Right.‖
―I suppose every fish in it was dead.‖
―Oh, yes. I mean, a lot of people moved out. That‘s sort of why the park went under. My folks
finally ended up just closing up the place and moving away.‖
―So all the subterfuge and bribery were for nothing. They lost their shirts anyway.‖
―Pretty much. They had some savings.‖
Mo sighed. ―Well, thanks.‖ Mo stood up. Her lips were pursed.
―Go ahead,‖ Ned said. ―I know what you want to ask.‖
―Well?‖ Her eyes narrowed with hurt. ―Why didn‘t you tell me? Or else leave with them? I mean,
you just let me buy this place knowing, knowing...‖
―I wanted to,‖ Ned said quietly. ―Tell you, I mean. It was just that...‖
―Just what?‖
―I‘d caused enough trouble already.‖ He sniffed, sighed, sat back, his hands thrust into his
pockets. ―When I found out about the bleach they‘d thrown into the water, I threatened to call the EPA.
My dad and I got into a screaming fight over it.‖ Ned cleared his throat. ―It ended when he had a heart
attack. He almost died.‖
―I‘m sorry,‖ Mo said.
―After that, my sisters and brother stopped talking to me.‖ He shrugged. ―A couple of months
later, my parents put the place up for sale and moved away.‖
―Because of the fight with you?‖
―That... and something else.‖ He made a dismissive gesture. ―I found out from one of the tenants -Bebe, actually—that all the residents had been served with notices about the park closing down.‖
―Your folks didn‘t even tell you that?‖
―They were done with me by then.‖ Ned stood up. ―Anyway, that‘s why there were still people
living here when you came. No one was officially evicted.‖ He shifted from foot to foot. ―You know, you
were the only prospective buyer who didn‘t want to keep the place as a trailer park. And I didn‘t think
you‘d be interested in using the lake that much...‖
―So it was all right to deceive me?‖
―No. No, I‘m not saying that. In fact, if you want me as a witness in whatever legal proceedings
you want to initiate, I‘ll do everything I can. You‘ll probably be able to get out of this sale, considering.‖
―What about your parents?‖
He shrugged. ―They shouldn‘t have agreed to any of this. I didn‘t want them to go broke, but this
thing has gone too far. I‘m sorry, Mo.‖
She smiled. ―Hey, there‘s a bright side. The authorities haven‘t come after me for having all of
you live here.‖
―There you go. They were not bribed in vain.‖
(Extra space)
―Calm down, Mrs. Owens.‖ Victoria‘s voice was steely. Mo knew that the use of her married
name had been deliberate. ―There is nothing wrong with the water. You had it tested, didn‘t you?‖ She
was using her Ace Realtor-handling-crabby-customer voice, professional, breathlessly serene, and uttered
through lips so tight that racquetballs could bounce off them.
―Not the water in the lake.‖
―It doesn‘t matter where it is, honey. Your property, your responsibility.‖
―I asked you about it,‖ Mo said. ―You never mentioned that a house had fallen into it.‖
―Oh, that‘s ancient history,‖ Victoria said, laughing.
―Twelve years,‖ Mo said.
―You see.‖
―That‘s not ancient.‖
Victoria sighed elaborately. ―My dear, I told you that the water had been treated and had passed
inspection by the county.‖
―It wouldn‘t pass inspection now. I‘ve had it tested. The water‘s swarming with E. coli.‖
―Everything is filed with the county.‖ Victoria was beginning to sound dangerous, as if she were
defending herself against a false accusation. It was just part of her presentation, Mo guessed, but it was still
effective. ―Now if for whatever reason that wasn‘t good enough for you, you should have raised an
objection prior to buying the property. You did not raise any such objection at the time. And if you will
permit me to remind you—‖
―You would have made an excellent divorce lawyer, Victoria,‖ Mo said. ―Goodbye.‖
Chapter Twenty One
Ned
Andras was the first to arrive at the ―Residents‘ Meeting‖ that Cynthia called. She was in her
glory, galvanized with righteous political indignation, venting her outrage against a corrupt government
unconcerned with the welfare of innocent people and unborn children. She suggested that Mo hire an
environmental lawyer to sue the county.
―It‘ll be like that movie with the girl with the big tits,‖ Andras contributed enthusiastically.
Cynthia eyed him as if he were a visible odor. ―Excuse me, but I thought we were talking about
something serious here,‖ she said with utmost seriousness. ―Something worth dying for.‖
Elsie rustled in her chair. ―Maybe you,‖ she said. ―I‘m not dying for nobody.‖
―Not even a one-eyed frog?‖ Forrest joked.
―Well, of course I didn‘t literally mean dying ...‖
―I think Elsie has a point,‖ Henya said. ―None of us likes the fact that there‘s a house—including a
still and a septic tank—in the lake, but is it really worth fighting for?‖
―Are you insane?‖ Cynthia shrilled. ―Of course it‘s—‖
―With whose money?‖ Henya prodded. ―Yours?‖
There was a general murmur.
―Mo would have to pay for the lawsuit. It‘s her property.‖
―She bought it under false pretenses,‖ Ned said. ―My parents dumped chlorine into the lake so that
the water would pass the potability test.‖
―So Mo should sue them,‖ Cynthia said.
―She should sue Ned‘s parents to get the money to sue the county?‖ Bebe exclaimed. ―Whose
inspectors didn‘t know—or certainly would never admit that they knew—about the chlorine in the lake?‖
―What‘s right‘s right,‖ Cynthia pouted.
―Elsie pointed her index finger at her. ―Why don‘t you just get the hell out of here, you left wing
cuckoo—‖
―Mom, come on,‖ Charlie said. ―Look, guys, I know I don‘t live here, but it‘s not really such a big
deal. We‘ve had the water tested since the frog day. The E coli levels are high, but not toxic. Actually, I
think you‘re all pretty lucky that the only thing that got dumped into that lake was bleach. They could have
used chemicals that caused real damage.‖
―The frogs are mutants!‖ Cynthia shouted. ―How much more ‗real‘ can the damage get?‖
―That ain‘t the bleach,‖ Andras said. ―Bleach don‘t last twelve years.‖
―Then why are the frogs still mutating?‖
―Probably because the septic tank is still in the lake oozing all kinds of nasty things,‖ Forrest said.
―Bingo,‖ Bebe said. ―That‘s the problem. Get that tank out of there, and I‘ll bet everything turns
out okay.‖
―Then the county should pay for the reclamation,‖ Cynthia insisted.
―Maybe,‖ Ned said. ―But we ought to think about Mo. Not only would she have to pay for
whatever legal proceedings are involved in suing the county, but she‘ll have a lot of other problems. You
all know that she doesn‘t have a license to run a trailer park. We‘re all here illegally.‖
―It‘s not illegal,‖ Cynthia said. ―We‘re her guests.‖
―Shut up, Cynthia,‖ Bebe said, finally exasperated. ―We‘re her guests because Mo‘s not charging
any one of us a goddamned dime.‖
―I pay my electricity,‖ Elsie said with a stubborn nod of her head.
Ned slid his eyes toward her.
―Oh, leave it,‖ Bebe said.
―The point is, a lawsuit against the county is something none of us can afford, we probably
wouldn‘t win it anyway, and the publicity might bring the authorities down on Mo.‖
―Oh, okay,‖ Cynthia said, her cheeks flushed. ―We‘ll just forget about it. Let the government win
again. It‘s only a few frogs, right? We‘ll just do nothing and wait until some children die.‖
Ned laughed in spite of himself. ―No, really, it doesn‘t have to be so dire. There is something we
can do. We can move the septic tank ourselves.‖ He looked from one to the other in silent expectation.
―Ourselves?‖ Katherine said in a small voice, breaking the silence. ―You mean like with a rope?‖
―I can do that,‖ Andras said, setting his chin. ―Why, me and some of my buddies from the
Moose—‖
―I was thinking more in terms of a crane,‖ Ned said.
―I‘m not paying for no crane,‖ Elsie said.
―How much is that going to cost?‖ Henya asked nervously.
―I‘m telling yez, I can do this!‖ Andras bellowed.
Ned stood up in exasperation. ―A household septic tank weighs about ten thousand pounds,‖ he
said. ―You and your fellow Moose aren‘t going to be able to drag that thing through the mud at the bottom
of a lake.‖
―No matter how many beers you drink before you start,‖ Jazzy said, not looking up from her
fingernails, which she was filing studiously. It was the first indication that she‘d been listening to anything
that was being said. ―You‘re going to need a lot more people. Plus a crane.‖
Forrest watched the motion of the file against Jazzie‘s fuschia fingernails with hypnotic
fascination. ―Such as who?‖ he asked slowly.
She shrugged. ―Anybody. Put an ad in the paper or something.‖
―My Charlie‘s girlfriend could put something in,‖ Elsie said. ―That is, if we‘re not too low-class
for her to report on.‖
―That might work,‖ Cynthia said, twitching nervously. ―Get the whole community involved.
Awareness is the key.‖
―I don‘t know,‖ Ned said. ―It might still bring attention to Mo.‖
―But she hasn‘t done anything illegal. Like Cynthia said, we‘re just her houseguests. And if she‘s
not suing the county...‖
―Then the county won‘t bother her,‖ Forrest said.
―I‘m not anybody‘s houseguest,‖ Elsie said. ―I pay my electricity.‖
―Okay, Mom,‖ Charlie said. ―So how about this. I‘ll talk to Naomi and see if she‘ll put something
in the paper for us. Meanwhile, one of you can start a volunteer list, and someone else can figure out where
to get the crane and what all has to be done.‖
―Sounds good,‖ Henya said.
―I still think we should sue the county,‖ Cynthia said.
(Extra Space)
The following Wednesday, a one-column article about the proposed reclamation that weekend of
the lake at the Elysian Fields Mobile Home Community appeared in the Valley Sentinel, along with a photo
of a grim-faced Cynthia holding two mutant frogs in a death grip.
As a result of that article, the ecology teacher at Liberty High School made a class project of the
septic tank removal. The entire Liberty Glee Club, under the direction of Forrest Mcormick, signed on to
help as well. Armed with this commitment, Junior Class President Liz Petrovsky approached the manager
of the Middle Tennessee Valley Renta Centa and secured the one-day use of a crane without charge. On
the day of the reclamation, more than a dozen divers from the club where Cynthia worked showed up to
help the students, as well as eight nurses and four aides from Henya‘s floor at Beltsville Memorial, six rock
guitarists, all friends of Charlie Nolan, plus twenty-four members of the Nashville Gay and Lesbian
Alliance, including several individuals who arrived carrying anti-government placards, and two tall men
dressed as Carmen Miranda. Together they worked all day, diving, roping, and hauling the cast iron septic
tank over underwater ramps constructed by Andras and his Moose compatriots from pieces of scrap metal.
Naomi Pearson, hearing about the huge turnout in response to her story, appeared with a
photographer in time to take a picture of the volunteers lined up like ants, trying to pull the poisonous iron
monster out of the lake.
A moment after the picture was taken, one of the four ropes broke and the septic tank, which had
nearly broken the surface of the water, fell back into the lake. An hour later, the father of one of the high
school volunteers showed up with a tractor bearing his construction company‘s name along its side.
The article that appeared in Sunday‘s paper, under the headline ―Community Bands Together for
Environmental Cleanup‖ featured all three photos depicting the hope, disappointment, and eventual
triumph of the self-sufficient, environmentally dedicated community of squatters at Elysian Fields. A
fourth photo, a Page One teaser in full color, featured Liz Petrovsky, covered in mud from head to foot,
cheering what the caption called ―Victory of Humans Over Machine.‖
(Extra Space)
―That‘s me, next to Ronnie,‖ Liz said proudly, pointing to a picture of herself consoling a
distraught Carmen Miranda as the septic tank sank into the lake.
―And is this you, too?‖ Victoria asked, indicating a fat girl climbing aboard the rescuing tractor.
Liz squinted at the grainy photos. ―Yeah! Wow, I‘m like the star of the event!‖
―Well, you certainly have the most mud on your face, if that‘s what you mean.‖
It was as if the air had suddenly frozen. Liz took a step backward. ―That was not what I meant,
actually,‖ she said quietly. Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks flushed.
―Elizabeth, please. Just look at you.‖ Her mother sighed and shook her head. ―I really don‘t know
what I‘m supposed to do with you. I mean....‖ She slapped the paper. ―You look as if you‘re one of those
people.‖
―What people,‖ Liz asked levelly.
―You didn‘t even tell me where you were going.‖
―Yes, I did,‖ Liz protested. ―I told you that I talked the whole Glee Club into volunteering...‖ Her
frown solidified. ―Oh, what difference does it make what I said. You weren‘t listening, anyway. That‘s why
you don‘t remember.‖
―Don‘t try that with me. You never said any—‖
―Bullshit!‖ Liz shouted. ―I told you about Mr. McCormick‘s signs around the school, but you
never heard a word I said because—‖
―What did you say?‖ Victoria‘s lips were white and drawn back, like a rabid dog‘s.
―Because nothing I say could ever be important to you!‖
Victoria closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned the newspaper face down on the kitchen
table. ―You don‘t want to miss your bus,‖ she said flatly.
―No, I don‘t,‖ Liz said. As she reached the door she added, ―because I wouldn‘t want to stay in
this house one second longer than I have to.‖ She slammed the door behind her.
(Extra Space)
Feeling her head begin to pound, Victoria picked up the paper again to see her daughter‘s
moonlike face grinning foolishly through a coating of mud.
She looks like a barnyard pig, Victoria thought. She folded the newspaper neatly and then,
blinking away tears of shame, threw it into the wastebasket.
(Extra Space)
Ronnie was cutting out the picture of himself from the newspaper.
―Other people might want to read that,‖ Ned grumbled.
―Meow,‖ Ronnie said. ―You‘re just jealous because nobody wants to take your picture. Now, is
that regal, or what?‖ He held the photo at arm‘s length. ―It‘s positively Medea.‖
Bryce Conran laughed. ―You look more like something out of the Star Wars Cantina.‖
Ronnie rolled his eyes. ―Could you possibly get any older? Nobody even knows what you‘re
talking about.‖
―Except you,‖ Bryce said. ―Still, you didn‘t look as weird as some of the people there.‖
―Like who?‖ Ned asked good-naturedly.
―Like the woman out of Women’s Wear Daily.‖ He snickered. ―Ralph Lauren from head to toe,
pulling a septic tank out of the lake.‖
―That‘s Katherine,‖ Ronnie said. She‘s a client of mine. She always dresses like that.‖
―At least her hair held up,‖ Fat Jimmy said.
―And how about Bebe Butler!‖ Ronnie screamed. ―For God‘s sake, I didn‘t even know she was
still alive!‖
―She isn‘t,‖ chimed in Ronnie‘s lover Jose. ―I mean, what would someone like B.B.B, the Queen
Bee, be doing in a trailer park in Beltsville, Tennessee? Hey, that all rhymed.‖
―Oh, it was her, all right. Queen Bee in the flesh, and twice as much of her.‖
―Ah-ah,‖ Ronnie said, making a show of covering Ned‘s ears. ―Not a word must be spoken against
Neddie‘s homestead.‖
―Right,‖ Ned said, smiling.
―Well, you‘d know, then,‖ Bryce said. ―Is Bebe Butler one of your tenants?‖
―It‘s not my park,‖ Ned waffled. ―I told you, it was sold. To Mo Owens the writer, in case any of
you read.‖
―We don‘t, and that doesn‘t answer the question.‖
Ned hesitated for a moment, then laughed. ―Come on, what do you think? Don‘t you think there
would be something in the local podunk paper if Le Bebe had transformed herself into trailer trash?‖
―Ooh, that‘s better,‖ Ronnie said. You used to be so sensitive, Neddie.‖ He went back to studying
his picture. ―But you know, that lady did look like Le Bebe.‖
―If Le Bebe gained a hundred pounds,‖ Jose said.
―Which she wouldn‘t,‖ Ronnie said.
―Certainly not if she‘s dead,‖ Bryce concluded.
―Which she is,‖ Jose said.
Ned said nothing. He had not promised Bebe not to talk about her; she had never asked. And she
probably wouldn‘t have cared if he did. But Ned Marcozzi was a respecter of privacy, his own and
everyone else‘s. It was what made him a good bartender and, to those who knew him, a good friend.
(Extra Space)
Three years before, Bebe and Cynthia had come barreling into General Grant‘s at two in the
morning in a dented Jaguar with a flat tire. Bebe had pounded on the door until he opened it.
―Vodka rocks!‖ she commanded.
―I‘m sorry, ma‘am,‖ Ned said. ―We‘re closed.‖
―You just opened the fucking door.‖
―I thought maybe you were in trouble.‖
―We are,‖ Cynthia moaned. ―Please. We don‘t have any gas. We don‘t know where we are. We‗ve
got a flat tire. And my friend‘s… Cynthia looked over at Bebe with a look of such despair and love that
Ned felt embarrassed. ―She‘s sick,‖ Cynthia finished.
Ned had seen that kind of sick before. ―It‘s not just alcohol, is it,‖ he said, knowing the answer.
The woman with Cynthia was gray and gaunt, with the stringy, hollowed-out look of heroin.
―A drink would help her,‖ Cynthia said. ―She‘s getting to be really hard to control.‖
―I said gimme a vodka rocks,‖ Bebe said, taking an ineffectual swipe at Ned. She missed, then
collapsed on the floor, crying and trembling.
―She needs to get to a hospital,‖ Ned said.
Cynthia mumbled something.
―What was that?‖
―No insurance.‖ She looked up at him. ―And she‘s doing all right. Really.‖
―I don‘t think so.‖
―She is. She‘s been detoxing since we left L.A.‖
―When was that?‖
Cynthia looked around vaguely. ―Ten days or so. Maybe two weeks. I thought that if I could just
keep her away from drugs, sooner or later she‘d be all right. So I‘ve been driving through the country,
staying away from cities.‖
―For two weeks?‖
Cynthia nodded. ―But our money‘s all gone now. We‘ve been sleeping in the car.‖ Tears sprang
into her eyes. ―And she‘s worse than usual. She needs something. A drink wouldn‘t be so bad.‖
―A free drink,‖ Ned said. He‘d heard a lot of pitches, but this one was the most desperate.
―We‘d be able to do something,‖ Cynthia said, blushing ferociously. ―That is, I would. To pay.‖
She began to unbutton her blouse.
Ned felt sickened by the woman‘s offer of sex in exchange for a drink for her friend. ―No, thanks,‖
Ned said. ―And I‘m not going to give any substance to her besides food. Do you need food?‖
Cynthia looked up hungrily.
―Come in the back,‖ Ned said. ―Bring her with you. ―No offense, but I don‘t want either of you
near the cash register.‖ He‘d already emptied the register and put the cash into an envelope in his backpack,
but he wasn‘t about to reveal that to some strung-out junkie and her codependent sidekick.
―We wouldn‘t steal from you,‖ Cynthia said in the small kitchen, where she forced Bebe to eat
some bread. ―And we could get money whenever we wanted to, if we needed it.‖
―How? By selling yourselves?‖
―No. There‘s another way.‖
―Is it legal?‖
―Yes.‖
―Then maybe you‘d better give it a try,‖ Ned said.
Cynthia deliberated a long time before nodding her head. ―I‘ll need to make a long distance call.‖
That was a long time ago. He‘d set them up at Elysian Fields in one of the empty trailers his
parents had rented to transients. Ned had not charged the women anything to stay but Cynthia had given
him a hundred dollars when some money came mysteriously through the mail a few days later. Then he‘d
watched while Cynthia nursed Bebe slowly back to health.
It was not until three months had gone by that Ned finally recognized Bebe, but even then he said
nothing to the two women. It wasn‘t news, he reasoned. Druggie celebrities landed in the gutter all the
time. But it still wouldn‘t have been kind to smear it in their faces.
As far as he knew, Bebe Butler had never taken another drink. That hadn‘t been her main problem,
anyway. Then again, the heroin probably hadn‘t been her main problem, either. Whatever had caused this
international beauty who‘d had the world at her feet to end up here, in a trailer park in Tennessee, was a
secret that Ned would allow her to keep.
She had someone to love her, and that was what mattered. The rest, he figured, was none of his
business.
(Extra Space)
Fat Tony didn‘t wait for Ned that night, and neither did the others. By two AM, every glass in
General Grant‘s was washed, the lights were out, and the doors were locked.
Ned was mounting his motorcycle when the headlights of a car in the parking lot came on along
with the hum of an engine. As he pulled out, the headlights swiveled onto the roadway behind him and
followed him for three miles down Route 33 and off the exit before suddenly vanishing.
They’ve turned off their lights, Ned thought, trying to swallow. The road leading to the trailer
park was almost always deserted since the old shopping center closed down. He could hear the car coming
closer, still in darkness. Someone threw a bottle out the window. It broke with a pop on the pavement.
It occurred to Ned that leading whoever was behind him straight to his home might not have been
the best idea. But where else could he go now? He could pull into the field, he thought frantically, and
hope his bike could make it over the rocky terrain until he reached the abandoned shopping center with its
pavement still intact. Yes, that would probably be the best thing. He licked his dry lips. The car would be
able to follow him on the unpaved area, but would have to take it slowly. Then, once once he reached the
shopping center, Ned would turn back toward Route 33 and into Beltsville. Nothing would be open, but at
least there were lights. And he would get a cell phone tomorrow. It was crazy not to have one these days,
he thought, even if you didn‘t have anyone to call ...
Then suddenly, blindingly, the car‘s lights came on behind him. Ned was engulfed by the light. A
moment later, loud music drowned out even the sound of the motorcycle beneath him.
Ned gunned the bike. A thousand feet, he told himself. If he could lose the car within those
thousand feet, he would—
The car hit the bike‘s tail. Ned flew up out of the seat as the rear wheel skewed crazily, but he
managed to hold onto the handlebars.
He heard laughter behind him above the music. The occupants were hanging out the windows.
Hey, faggot!‖ one of them yelled in the sort of voice that had terrified Ned during high school
football games: a deep scream, frightening as a war cry. He had heard that sound often enough. It had
usually preceded his being pushed off bleachers, or attacked in dark places. He had heard it on the night of
his prom, while walking his date to his father‘s car—the event had ended with getting the car‘s windows
smashed by baseball bats while he ran down the street with his terrified date like two scared mice—and he
had heard it again after he‘d tried out unsuccessfully for the school basketball team.
That had been one of the craziest ideas he‘d ever had. Not long after his ignominious failure (not
to mention the beating he‘d received at the hands of the class jocks in the boys‘ room), Ned had
experienced a stunning thought: What if he had made the team? As it was, he‘d only been beaten once. As
a member of the team, he would have been subjected to the same abuse on a daily basis.
It didn‘t matter if the voice was calling him a faggot, a pansy, a dweeb, nerd, fruit, cocksucker, or
just plain trailer trash. The words never mattered. It was the sound itself that made his blood feel as if it had
turned cold in his veins.
The engine picked up and in the moment before the car lurched forward to hit him again, Ned
veered off the roadway onto the barren field. This apparently struck the car‘s occupants as tremendously
amusing. Someone threw a bottle at him and laughed raucously as it whizzed by his head. The car was
turning off the road to follow him when an oncoming vehicle turned a corner. Within two seconds, a siren
whooped in warning, and a rack of colored lights flashed.
Police! Ned thought as he brought his motorcycle to a halt. He had never experienced such good
luck. The relief he felt was exhilarating. He turned the bike around and headed back slowly toward the
road.
―What are you boys doing?‖ the officer asked the four occupants of the car. He examined each
face in the beam of his high-powered flashlight.
―Just trying to defend ourselves, officer,‖ the driver said. ―This guy was bothering us in a bar a
while back, you know what I mean?‖
The policeman illuminated their faces again. ―All four of you?‖ he asked
―No,‖ the driver said. ―Just Dale here.‖ He patted the boy in the front passenger seat, who made a
groaning sound. The two in the back sniggered.
―Something funny back there?‖ the officer demanded.
―No, sir,‖ they chorused.
The policeman glanced at the driver‘s license and registration. ―Lontz,‖ he read.
―That‘s right, Officer Johnson.‖
The policeman squinted. The kid was reading his name tag.
―My dad‘s Ray Lontz. You‘ve probably met him.‖
The two in the back exchanged grins. Ray Lontz was the Beltsville Chief of Police. His son had
already figured out that Johnson was no doubt a member of the police force‘s part-time staff, one of sixteen
men who put on uniforms for a few hours a week to earn extra money. For the most part, these sixteen men
had received little training as police officers, and were employed by small towns with low crime to
dispense traffic tickets and patrol rural areas.
―Might have,‖ Johnson said without expression. Then he gestured toward Ned Marcozzi, who was
waiting some distance away, his helmet under his arm, his license in his extended hand.
―These boys are saying you tried to pick one of them up,‖ the officer said while examining Ned‘s
identification.
Incredulous, Ned nearly laughed. The boys in the car didn‘t look as if they were out of high
school. ―I never saw them before,‖ he said. ―They were waiting for me in the parking lot of the place where
I work. They followed me here and hit the back of my motorcycle. They broke my taillight. If you hadn‘t
shown up—‖
―Where do you work?‖
Ned exhaled sharply. The boys in the car were all turned around to face him, grinning. ―At a bar
called General Grant‘s,‖ he said.
―That one of those gay bars?‖
A hesitation. ―Yes,‖ Ned said.
Officer Johnson shone his flashlight directly into Ned‘s face for a long time. Neither of them said
anything. Finally he diverted the beam. ―Any of you want to file charges?‖ he shouted over his shoulder.
The driver leaned out the window. ―No, sir. Long as this homosexual person promises to leave us
alone.‖
It was enough for Ned. The gay community was well aware of Captain Lontz and his tendency to
hire cops with Gestapo dispositions. Most of Ned‘s friends from Chattanooga and Nashville made a point
of never, ever, passing through Beltsville.
―What about you?‖ Officer Johnson asked, jutting out his chin. ―You feel like pressing charges?‖
It sounded like a dare.
―No,‖ Ned said resignedly. ―No charges.‖
The driver of the car smiled slowly at him.
―I think you boys had better go home now,‖ the officer said as he handed the Chief‘s son his
license.
―Yes, sir,‖ young Lontz said.
The policeman waited until the car was turned around and well down the road before turning back
to Ned. ―Where are you headed?‖ he asked.
For a moment, Ned had the fleeting, insane feeling that Officer Johnson was going to proposition
him. ―Home,‖ he said.
Johnson continued to stare at his driver‘s license. ―You live at the trailer park?‖
Ned nodded.
―I heard they‘re all like you there.‖
―Like me?‖ Ned asked before understanding. ―Oh. No. They‘re not.‖ He swallowed. ―In fact, I‘m
the only gay man there.‖
Officer Johnston‘s expression hardened into one of disgust. ―Get out of here,‖ he said, handing
back Ned‘s I.D.
Part IV
Litha
June 21
The time of the Lovers’ Moon, when life is easy. But at the moment when the longest day of the
year ends, the days begin to recede, and the earth begins to head inexorably toward the dark times. But all
that is far away in the future now. At Litha, no one can think of anything but summer.
Chapter Twenty Two
Mo
No one ever knew the old woman’s name. Some said that she was a spirit from the west, from
the Otherworld of the spirits and of the dead. Others saw in her lined face the mark of the cursed,
those doomed to wander the earth forever, alone and unprotected by the benign forces of the universe.
No one felt pity for such a one, because it was known that these outcasts held the power to dry up an
entire crop or kill a herd of sheep with a single thought. Women kept their children far away from her,
and made the sign of protection over their heads or drew the signs with charcoal above the doorways of
their homes.
But still, they gathered around the community fire when the old woman came begging for food,
for in exchange, she would tell them stories of distant lands and great magic. And so even though the
people feared her, and kept distance between themselves and the witch woman at the fire, they felt
compelled to be in her presence, to hear their stories and absorb her danger, her wisdom and her
despair.
Where do I go from here? I want to tell the rest of Araiama’s story—so okay, she feels
responsible for the gruesome deaths of her followers, so she curses herself to a thousand powerless lives.
But first, she has to live out her current life, right? So she wanders around, a bard of sorts, always a
stranger in a strange land.
Okay, but then what? Does she see into the future or something? How do I get to her thousand
powerless lives? Do I write little vignettes of, say, her brief life as a Viking warrior?
Oh, it’s stupid. The whole idea is stupid. What was I thinking?
Stop it, I tell myself. Stop it, stop it. This happens with every book, at about the same place,
around page 150, give or take. There‘s enough forward momentum from the first burst of enthusiasm over
the story, or the idea behind the story, to carry me for those easy, effortless hundred pages. But then the
Voice begins to speak, declaring that I‘ve got nothing more to say, that the idea I‘ve been so crazy about is,
after all, stupid, childish, and definitely not worth writing a whole book about. And worst of all, that the
reason my novel has died in the womb is because I lack the ability to finish even the paltry thing I‘ve
started.
To be fair, I think all writers are familiar with that voice. Some call it the Inner Critic. Mine is
much too familiar to be identified by profession, though. I just call mine Mother.
Mother is always ready to doubt me, to point out my weaknesses, to broadcast my failures. She
reigned supreme during the year surrounding my divorce, managing not only to convince me that my
husband had left me for another woman because I had proven to be woefully inadequate as a wife, but had
also brought my writing career to a standstill by convincing me that I was too stupid, to inarticulate, too out
of touch with things to write anything that anyone would want to read.
Oh, Mother,‖ I whisper. ―I know it‘s you, and I know you‘re full of shit.‖
With a sigh I walk back to my desk. On my computer is a sign that reads, ―A first draft is not a
book.‖
I‘ve lectured a number of times to writers‘ groups and college classes about this very thing. The
fact was, anyone who listened to Mother, or whatever one‘s personal equivalent of Mother was, was
doomed. Mother liked perfection, and no one, not even a Nobel Prize winner, was ever going to be perfect
enough for Mother. First drafts had to be hidden from Mother, locked in a room where Mother was denied
admittance.
The first draft had to grow like yeast, bubbling and stinking, in a dark place. The words had to be
allowed to pour out, more words than were necessary, put together awkwardly, spilling out in many
directions. A first draft was childish, inefficient, wordy, boring, unfocused.
Editors always claim to want to see first drafts, but are shocked if they actually do. I generally
present a second or third draft, and claim that it‘s the first. Editors have too much Mother in them to
understand that the beginnings of a book are messy and childish, written by children long ago disguised by
bodies grown into adulthood. But the generator of the book is always the child scribbling in a black and
white notebook under the covers with a flashlight, because Mother couldn‘t find her there.
Now, with the big eye of the computer in full view, it‘s easier for Mother to get in. The look of the
page, so neat, devoid of typographical errors, perfectly spaced, without so much as an erasure, gives the
impression of perfection.
Show Me to Mother, it says.
But Mother is not allowed. Not yet. ―Goodbye,‖ I say aloud as I jiggle my mouse. The screen
saver—a meadow filled with mooing cows—vanishes to reveal a page of text.
What?
I gasp. Again?
Yes. Twenty-four point type in the middle of an otherwise blank screen.
Retrieve my shrine.
Irritated, nervous, nauseous, I run my fingers through my hair. It‘s tangled. I realize that I haven‘t
combed it today. Have I brushed my teeth? I don‘t remember.
And I certainly don‘t remember writing that sentence.
What gall, I write beneath it.
I realize that Araiama Mari is the voice of my own deep self, but even so, I cannot fathom why I
would want to erect a shrine to myself.
It isn’t for you, fool.
Oh?
Someone once built it for me.
Who?
Someone you don’t know.
Not possible, I write. You can’t know anyone or anything I don’t know.
Nevertheless, you don’t know anything about me until I tell you.
So give me a clue. Is it a shrine to Mari you want?
No, no. The Goddess wouldn’t accept such a thing from me.
Because you’re (we’re) unworthy.
No answer.
Who built it?
I don’t remember. A difficult name. I called her Momo, Beloved, after my lost child.
A real person, then? Real to you, I mean.
As real as you are, “Mo Owens”.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Nothing. A little fictional-character joke you wouldn’t understand. Come, pick up a pencil.
I’ll help you draw a picture.
I obey. On a white sheet of typing paper, I draw a three-sided structure that resembles a Japanese
Torii gate, with two slender uprights joined by a crosspiece. Hanging off the upper corners are feathers and
lengths of braided reeds.
A woman built this? I ask.
A girl, Araiama answers. She began it as I lay dying.
You… died?
Of course, eventually. But there’s more to my story, don’t worry.
Oh, relief. For a moment I was afraid that Araiama might have told me all there was, and I‘d be
stuck with a 150-page novel. So where was this shrine erected? I ask. European Neolithic peoples didn‘t
build structures like the Shinto gateway I‘d just drawn. And what was with the beads and feathers?
Here, she wrote. Near this lake.
Suddenly I feel a violent sinking in my stomach.
What? No! I have researched Middle Europe and the Basque region out the ying yang, and after a
hundred pages, I will not change it now! Your ―tribe‖ were not Native Americans, any more than
you were a Viking explorer or an Eskimo who’d wandered across the Bering Strait. No, no, no.
You were a Balkan, worshipping the goddess Mari near the fricking Bay of fricking Biscay!!!
That’s the only way my story makes sense.
I am trembling. Sorry, I add, folding my arms across my chest. I mean, I have to let her know
who‘s boss here. Subconscious figment or not, I can‘t let my characters start telling me to change my story
and throw out my research. If I did, I‘d never finish a book.
Sorry yourself, the keyboard clacked. This is where it happened. In the sea outside.
I‘m breathing hard now and feeling belligerent. For one thing, any idiot can tell that the body of
water outside is not a sea. It is a not even a lake, really. It is a bulge in a tributary of the Tennessee River.
It was once larger, Araiama wrote.
Then I was lost. Araiama took me into the story again, at her pace as usual. I wrote it all down,
following as fast as I could. She took me into the page, behind the words, and Mother was far away, too
distant to be heard.
(Extra Space)
I travelled like a beggar, on foot, sleeping in the woods, living off whatever local vegetation
there was when I could find no settlements to take me in. My knowledge of plants is good, but as I
traveled eastward, as it turned out (I neither knew nor cared where I was headed at the time), I
constantly encountered growing things that were new to me. I preserved and tested these, and asked
about them whenever I met people of the region. Some were medicinal, and carried me through bouts
of fever, infection, and a number of digestive ailments.
Not that it mattered very much to me whether or not I survived these unpleasantries. I had no
goddess to guide me, only my animal instincts. And that is how I lived, like an animal, eating and sleeping
and moving restlessly toward the unknown. I wanted an unknown death.
And I found it. After three winters, I arrived at the end of the world, bordered by water as far
as I could see.
(Extra Space)
―Yes?‖ I say after ten minutes of hovering over the keyboard like a clawed bird of prey. I type it:
Yes?
Retrieve my shrine.
―Don‘t be ridiculous,‖ I say out loud.
―Fine,‖ Araiama says, appearing near the fireplace. ―I won‘t tell you the rest of the story.‖
I stare at the old woman, my eyes narrowed. I’m too deep into the book, I think. I’m allowing my
imagination to blackmail me into writer’s block.
(Extra Space)
Writer‘s block is the boogyman of all novelists. Writers take poison over Block. They jump out of
windows, slit their wrists, drink. They go into seclusion, where they stare at a dirty wall for months on end.
They travel, wandering aimlessly, telling themselves that it is all to a purpose. They explore new religions,
begin strange diets, take up time-consuming hobbies, gamble, have too much sex or none at all, read
incessantly or become mindless and vacant-eyed. It is the drought, when no words come and the lush
landscape of the writer‘s creative mind turns inexplicably into a trackless desert.
Mo‘s hands began to shake as she stared at the last paragraph she‘d written. Perhaps the last she‘d
ever write.
Writer’s block. She could not even bear to think the words. Writer‘s block was a promise unkept,
an advance unearned, the accusation of an unjustified life. Writer‘s block represented the lie that all writers
feared would sooner or later surface for all the world to see: that they were creatures made of nothing but
air, and when the room became airless, they would gasp like floppy fish, helpless and doomed and dying.
Mo shivered. She had undergone five years of therapy in order to rid herself of the idea that some
entity beside herself had written her books, that she herself, and not the Beast, would determine what – and
when – she would write.
The whole idea of Mo and her Beast seemed to be so patently psychotic that she had never
discussed it with anyone. Certainly not with Desmond, who would have made his wife‘s problem into a
cocktail party anecdote. Even Dr. Lehman, Mo‘s therapist, had admitted that Mo‘s reluctance to claim
credit for her work was peculiar. It took two forms, Dr. Lehman concluded. The first had been Mo‘s
acquiescene to presenting herself as a co-writer with Desmond instead of the sole author of her books. The
second peculiarity was the concept of the ―Beast‖ itself, which had been, at bottom, Mo‘s belief that her
function during the creation of a novel was merely that of a scribe, a worker who did not think, but only put
down the Beast‘s words, and sometimes did not even remember doing so.
According to the therapist, it was Mo‘s way of relinquishing responsibility for the ―bad‖ things
she wrote: The irreligious, pornographic, unconventional ideas that had made her writing uniquely hers. In
this denial-laden construct, Mo herself was no more than an innocent and brainless housewife.
Her therapy had occurred some time after her separation from Desmond. She had written a solo
novel before this, but she had not been ready to do so. The book had been too full of her own hurt and
confusion and anger and misery – the Beast had gotten away from her from page one. The 1000 Lives of
Araiama Mari was to be the first work that Mo acknowledged having written entirely alone. The single
name on the author line of the cover would be exclusively hers. The Beast was dead; Mo Owens had spent
several years of her life learning to slay it.
―No!‖ Mo shouted, getting up abruptly from her chair. ―I wrote the story, not you, Araiama! Not
Desmond, and not you! Just me!‖ She bit her lip, hearing the echo of her own strident voice. As long as
you’re talking to her, she’s not a figment, she reminded herself. She closed her eyes, willed Araiama away,
and turned around.
Araiama was gone.
There would be no writer‘s block, she told herself. She, Mo Owens, the name on the author line,
would not permit it.
Chapter Twenty Three
Charlie
Charlie Nolan was as unlike the other residents of Elysian Fields as a barrel cactus in a vegetable
bin.
But then again, Mo thought, they were all like that: A collection of utter misfits, all of them
prickly, difficult, neurotic, weird. At least Charlie was young, healthy and hetero, which made him sort of
normal.
What are you thinking? Mo laughed aloud and stood up. She‘d been leaning out her bedroom
window, with her arms folded along the sill so long that she barely had any feeling in her fingers. Charlie,
who had been the object of her intense if unintentional scrutiny, was anything but normal: a thirtysometing
rock n‘ roller who lived in his mother‘s trailer. He had never worked at anything more difficult than being a
roadie for a heavy metal group. He still had shoulder-length hair and dressed in black tee shirts with logos
featuring skulls. He was forty pounds overweight. And he had a girlfriend who anyone could see he was
serious about. A girlfriend, Mo added silently, who was young enough to be her daughter.
She sighed and put on her shoes. She would be expected to be present.
At the moment he was playing his guitar for the benefit of the others who sat around a campfire
that Bebe had built to celebrate the longest day of the year. The music was loud and wild, as if Charlie were
using a knife for a placket. Elsie frowned as she knitted, finally setting down her yarn with a disapproving
glace. Katherine got up discreetly and moved away from the fire. Andras and Cynthia, who had been trying
to talk above the din, gave up and walked toward their latest project, a half-finished gazebo near the lake.
Only Forrest McCormick and Jazzy seemed to enjoy Charlie‘s angry rendition of ―Midnight Rider.‖
Jazzy swung her long black hair in time to the music. It was remarkable hair, falling like sheets of
black water, nearly touching the ground. The movement was not lost on Forrest.
Charlie himself saw nothing. The violent chords he played were automatic. He had opened more
gigs than he could remember with them.
His vehicle, a seventeen-year-old van with ―Night Riders‖ painted on the side in lightning-bolt
letters, was parked outside his mother‘s trailer. It was filled with Charlie‘s amplifier, microphones,
recording equipment, and two other guitars. Stuffed in the spaces among them were his clothes, both clean
and dirty, a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and a poster of Iron Maiden. These comprised the entirety of Charlie
Nolan‘s possessions.
(Extra Space)
Naomi had called him Peter Pan for the last time.
―And who are you supposed to be, my mother?‖ he had countered.
―That‘s the point, Charlie. I‘m tired of being your mother. I don‘t want to pick up your socks
anymore. I don‘t want to come back from a twelve-hour work day to find you lying on the couch listening
to Motorhead.‖
―It‘s my day off,‖ Charlie had said.
―It‘s your life off!‖
Charlie had stormed off at that, collecting the few items he owned in a cardboard box.
―Oh, don‘t get dramatic,‖ Naomi said wearily. ―Look, I‘ve had a bad day. Maybe—‖
―Naomi, let me tell you something. The fact that you work twenty four seven at the Sentinel is a
choice, all right? Your choice, not mine. You have chosen to measure out your life in coffee spoons.‖
―And you‘ve chosen to measure yours in dime bags.‖
―Goodbye, Naomi,‖ Charlie said.
―Hey.‖ She had come up to him then, leaned her head on his shoulder. ―Let‘s just pretend this
conversation didn‘t happen,‖ she said softly.
―But it did happen. It‘s happened a hundred times. You just wish I was somebody I‘m not.‖
A moment passed between them. ―No,‖ she said finally, stepping away from him. ―You do.‖
Charlie swallowed once, picked up the box, and walked out the door.
(Extra Space)
He played the last, resounding riff of Midnight Rider, then pulled the strap over his head.
―No, don‘t go,‖ Forrest said with a smile. He was taking out a guitar of his own from an ancient
case covered with yellowing decals. ―I was hoping you‘d play along with me,‖ he said as he tuned up.
―Something I wrote.‖
―Oh.‖ Charlie tried to look interested, or at least polite, but it was difficult. This was the last place
he should have come.
Back with his mother, who was crazy at the best of times, in this shithole full of weirdos, people
as crazy as she was.
Forrest handed Charlie a piece of paper. ―I‘ve written out the chord structure,‖ he said. ―Think
you can play that?‖
D, G, A-seventh. ―Uh, yeah,‖ Charlie said, wanting to add, can I wipe my ass? He felt ashamed of
the thought. These people meant no harm. And they had nothing to do with Naomi or the fact that she
was too good for him.
―Okay,‖ Charlie said. He played the first chord. Forrest was slow—clearly the guitar was not his
instrument of choice—but after a few chords, he became more confident. For sixteen bars the two of
them played companionably as the piece developed into what Charlie recognized as an old-fashioned,
Appalachian folk pattern.
And then Forrest began to sing. ―Tsunami,‖ he crooned. ―Tsu...na...mi.‖ He appeared to be deeply
absorbed in the music, hideous as it was, his body swaying from side to side, his eyes closed.
Your love is a tsunami
A rippling tidal wave
Washing, washing
Washing me away
Washing...
―What this hell is this?‖ Charlie asked, thinking it might have been a joke.
Forrest looked stricken. ―It started out as an oratorio about the Virgin Mary. A Christmas piece I
was working on for the church where I‘m the music director.‖ He blushed. ―I‘ve changed it to be more poporiented. It doesn‘t seem that anyone wants to hear liturgical music these days.‖
―Well, nobody wants to hear about being washed away by tsunamis, either.‖ He looked from
Forrest to Jazzy, the only other person remaining at the fire. She was nodding, pretending that she
understood. ―I mean, that‘s just tacky, dude,‖ Charlie said.
Forrest looked blank for a moment before his face collapsed into a mask of anguish. ―Oh, good
heavens, I hadn‘t thought... The Indonesian tidal waves... That wasn‘t my intention, not at all.‖
―What?‖
―I wasn‘t making fun of tsunami damage.‖
Charlie took a deep breath. ―Relax, Forrest,‖ he said. ―I‘m just saying the lyrics are lame.‖
―Oh, how insensitive I‘ve been!‖ Forrest wailed.
―No, no, no.‖ It was Jazzy, for once not pouting or complaining about anything. She put her arm
around Forrest, her bracelets clanking together. With the movement, a waft of her exotic perfume rose up to
envelop all three of them. ―Forrest, you‘re the most sensitive man there is.‖ She breathed deeply, causing
her bosom to heave upward toward his face.
―I think I‘m going to get something to eat,‖ Charlie said.
(Extra Space)
Jazzy looked like an odalisque lying on the divan in front of the trailer‘s broken living room
window. Overhead, a fan with one missing blade added to the still life.
She wore an Indian chula of yellow silk accentuated by tiny mirrors above a skirt of dazzling
white gauze. Her hair, tousled in sexy disarray, was tied up into a loose topknot by a long purple scarf. A
pair of nine-inch earrings draped the sides of her slender neck.
Jazzy possessed an odd talent: It was the capacity to lie so still that she might be mistaken for a
photograph. She had developed it during a brief stint as an artist‘s model. Her stillness was more than sleep.
There was no telltale breathing, no rise and fall of her chest, no pulse within a vein. It was as if she turned
off her very life.
This was how she lay now. She was not sleeping, though her eyes were closed. One arm was
thrown over her head, which rested on a satin pillow. The divan itself was covered by a long fringed shawl
from 1930‘s China, handpainted in a palette of Asian watercolors.
Jazzy was completely aware of how she looked, down to the glow of perspiration on her face. She
had always had an eye for beauty, particularly her own. What she had created was a tableau, made
complete by the soft, subliminally insistent rhythm and wild-sounding vocals of Dead Can Dance in the
background. A tableau that, unfortunately, only Andras Kodaly would see.
―What are you—get off me!‖ she shouted as Andras squatted into the spot occupied by her calves.
―You‘re on my clothes!‖
―Got to sit somewhere,‖ he answered good-naturedly.
―Well, it‘s not going to be here.‖ She put her feet together and kicked at his buttocks.
―Don‘t do that, baby,‖ Andras said. ―It‘s too hot.‖
―You‘re goddamned right it‘s hot!‖ Jazzy screamed. ―Who can live in a metal trailer without air
conditioning?‖ She poked him. ―Huh?‖
―I don‘t know. The dykes don‘t have one. Neither do Katherine and Forrest. If you ask me, the
only ones that got them are Elsie and that Henya. And maybe Ned the fag. I don‘t know, I never seen his
place. Nobody else, though.‖
She cast him a withering look. ―Well, it‘s about a hundred degrees, and I want one.‖
Andras grinned. ―Oh, you want one, huh?‖ He reached out to her in an amorous embrace. ―Want a
big one, I‘ll bet.‖
―Get the hell out.‖ She slapped him away.
Andras looked like a kicked dog. ―I guess I could ask Mickey Ravioli,‖ he said. ―That‘s one of my buddies
from the Moose. ―His name‘s not really ravioli, that‘s just—‖
―You do that,‖ Jazzy said, narrowing her eyes. Her legs were clamped tightly together.
Andras regarded her with a sigh. ―Air conditioner, huh?‖
―Don‘t come back until you‘ve got it, either.‖
―Oh, I‘ll get it,‖ he said, standing up. He wiggled his eyebrows. ―And then I‘m going to get some
of the other. Deal?‖
Jazzy turned her back to him. He laughed.
―You just wait nice for Daddy,‖ he said.
(Extra Space)
Katherine fretted about her hair. It was the new hairdresser, who did not yet understand that she
had cowlicks. It was not simply the natural growout from her last, apparently disastrous haircut by her
former hairdresser.
They were all the same, she thought while she frantically tried to backcomb the offending section.
Every hairdesser she‘d ever gone to had trashed the last person who‘d done her hair. It seemed to be a sort
of rite of passage when changing hairdressers: Before becoming one of the ―in‖ clients, you had to endure
the horrified exclamations about the abysmal condition of your hair and the odious appearance of your
current style.
She should never have left Ron. Ronnie, as he liked to call himself during his more flamboyant
moments. He was a performer of some sort, although Katherine would never consider going to the type of
place he described as his second job.
―Now, what did I hear about Miss Katherine leaving Mr. Corporate for a hot new boy toy?‖
Katherine had nearly fallen out of her chair.
―Oh, stop, honey,‖ Ronnie had said. ―It‘s about time you had a little fun. Look how gorgeous you
are. You need a fling. Believe me, I‘m ready for one myself.‖
―How... how did you hear that?‖ she asked. ―It‘s not true, of course.‖
―Oh, of course. Not. Whatever.‖ He shook his head, smiling as he aimed the dryer on the top of
her head.
―Was it Victoria?‖ Katherine whispered hoarsely.
―What?‖ He turned off the dryer in annoyance.
―It wasn‘t Victoria Tanner, was it?‖
―Oh, please. That bitch.‖ He turned the dryer back on. ―I wouldn‘t listen to her if she was giving
out R. Patt‘s phone number. And if her hair gets any more frosted, she‘s going to have to start glueing it on
in the morning.‖
Katherine didn‘t hear anything he said after that. When Ronnie was finished and stood back
holding the hand mirror so that she could admire the back of her head, Katherine finally realized who it had
been.
―Was it Ned?‖ she asked softly.
―Ned who?‖ Ronnie countered, feigning innocence so blatantly that she knew she was right.
Katherine had tipped him extravagantly, but she never returned to the shop. She could not bear
the thought of people gossiping about her relationship with Forrest, as if they were a couple of cheap
adulterers.
But that’s what I am, she thought. And everyone in SOTA was going to know it sooner or later.
Would this be that day? she wondered miserably. The event she was attending was scheduled as
an ordinary SOTA luncheon. Not to go would be to invite gossip. But what if they already knew? Victoria
Tanner had somehow managed to find out about Katherine‘s separation from Richard. It would, she mused,
just be a matter of time before everyone knew. A matter of time...
She looked in the mirror and burst into tears. ―And when I‘m exposed, my hair will look like this,‖
she said bitterly.
(Extra Space)
―I just ran into Andras,‖ Cynthia said. Her arms were akimbo, in confrontation position.
Bebe sighed. ―Okay, what‘s wrong,‖ she asked wearily.
―He said he was getting an air conditioner.‖
―At least somebody‘s got some sense.‖
Cynthia reddened. ―You agreed that we wouldn‘t participate in polluting the atmosphere by using
an air conditioner,‖ she screeched.
―Yeah, yeah.‖ Bebe raised her shirt over her head, revealing her outsized breasts.
―I always thought you were as convinced about ...‖ Cynthia frowned as Bebe stepped out of her
shorts, revealing a pair of bright pink bikini underpants. ―What are you doing?‖
Bebe removed the underpants and flung them aside as she bolted out the door toward the lake.
―Yaaa!‖
―Careful,‖ Cynthia called after her. ―The water hasn‘t been tested for mercury!‖
(Extra Space)
Mo blinked when she opened the door and found Charlie Nolan, clean as a schoolboy, clutching a
blue paper folder.
―I brought something for you to read,‖ he said eagerly.
Mo tried not to wince. There was no upside to fame.
Even the limited fame achieved by a novelist of only moderate stature had brought Mo nothing but
pressure, embarrassment, sorrow, and irritation. Strangers assumed she was rich, though she was not,
because they had seen her name in the papers. She was constantly invited to speak to children‘s
organizations and attend book signings in faraway places, and when she refused, she was labeled
―inaccessible‖ or arrogant. Her family had called her ―stuck up‖ from the time of her first publication. Her
friends, for the most part, did not read her books, and so maintained an air of equality that resulted in a kind
of grand pretense that they had jobs, but she did not.
And then there were the writers, the perpetrators of perennially unfinished novels who thought
nothing of thrusting their manuscripts in her face and demanding that she read them.
Mo had done this during the first ten years or so of her career, read the pages, trying to clarify the
tangled plot twists and and characters too closely drawn to the authors‘ personal lives. Not one of the
people whose manuscripts Mo read had ever communicated with her again. They had wanted untrammeled
praise and a promise to find a publisher for them, not (as they had all invariably insisted) suggestions on
how to improve their work.
That was the unspoken basis, which Mo finally understood: You must love my work, and you
must use your influence in the publishing business to help me achieve fame and fortune. But I will do
nothing, change nothing, and never admit to being less than perfect.
She had thought about writing a form letter that would save her her the trouble of reading any
more of these sacred, untouchable works:
Dear Author,
Thank you for allowing me to read your magnificent novel. I have arranged for a major launch of
your book by New York’s most prestigious publisher, and have taken the liberty of contacting Katie Couric
and Oprah, who request your presence as a guest of their respective television programs.
Please prepare your Nobel Prize acceptance speech at once.
Sincerely,
Mo Owens
―Uh...‖ She fingered the slim folder. ―What is this, exactly?‖
―Just some poems,‖ Charlie said. ―Most of them started out as lyrics.‖
She pressed her lips together. ―I‘m sorry,‖ she said, staring down at the floor. ―I don‘t know
anyone who publishes poetry. I can‘t help you.‖
She handed the folder back to Charlie with a tight smile, waiting for the argument, the denial that
her influence was the reason for the visit, the inevitable request for her agent‘s phone number.
―Oh, no, nothing like that,‖ Charlie laughed. ―These are just personal things. They‘re pretty dumb.
I‘ve never even shown them to anyone. I just thought that since you‘re a writer...‖ He blushed. ―Hey, I
apologize,‖ he said, taking back the folder. ―I wasn‘t trying to use you, if that‘s what you were thinking.‖
He walked away.
Mo closed the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty Four
Jazzy
The heat hung in the still air, silent except for the distant sound of Ned on the riding mower. Bebe
swam in the lake, creating great circles that rippled out to the shore. The aroma of baking bread was in the
air, coming from Elsie‘s trailer where she and Henya were making baguettes.
When the mower shut off, the ensuing silence sounded almost like ringing. Then the ringing
subsided into the tinny notes of a computer keyboard.
The melody itself was quite beautiful: Barbaric, Biblical, stately. It was Forrest‘s unfinished
oratorio, emasculated by the reedy quality of the computer keyboard he was using but still lovely, still
magnificent in its potentiality.
―Washing, washing...‖ Jazzy sang idly, watching herself in the ceiling mirror as she stretched her
arms over her head to reach the metal bars of the headboard.
Since Andras‘ departure, she had moved from the divan to the bed, where her purple silk sheets
offered a small solace, and the overhead mirror some distraction.
She was wearing the same gossamer harem pants, now rendered transparent by the shaft of light
streaming from a window across the room to strike her, lying on the bed, like a spotlight. Slowly she raised
one leg and undulated it in rhythm to the faraway music.
―Wa... shing,‖ she sang breathlessly. What kind of crazy song was that, anyway? That guy should
stick to writing music, and leave the words to someone else.
He was cute, though, in a professorial way. And he liked Jazzy. She could tell. Forrest sang louder
when he knew she was listening. He played the guitar better, too, although he wasn‘t very good at that to
begin with. He was much better at keyboards.
And the music. This classical stuff was okay, but it would be better with some real rhythm. Some
tabla drums, maybe.
And, of course, Jazzy herself dancing to it.
She touched a silk handkerchief to her forehead. Jazzy did not mind the heat. She believed in
reincarnation, and knew that she had spent her last life in some hot place. Hot, but not wet like it was here
in this redneck shithole. Her psychic home was in the undulating sands of Arabia. That was the music that
beat in her blood.
She had been a heteira, of that Jazzy was certain. Although she was not by nature a reader, she had
consumed every book about ancient Egypt that she could find. Egypt was popular. Every small town New
Age store had behind its counter at least one ugly woman who claimed to have been Queen Hatshepsut in
the long ago. It sounded more authentic than Cleopatra, and less crazy. And it made the old bags feel
special, Jazzy supposed.
But Jazzy knew for certain where she had been, and whom. She had not been a queen. She had
been a courtesan, the most beautiful of them all, draped in veils and bells, so desirable that men would save
their earnings for a year just to watch her dance.
(Extra Space)
Jazzy had been born Faith Snyder just after the second world war, and raised in a trailer much like
the one she was living in now, in a hick town in central Alabama. But unlike her present mobile home,
there had been no silk coverings over the mirrors or the ceiling. She had grown up listening to country
music coming from a radio in a kitchen buzzing with flies and the stink of baby diapers.
She had run away from that at fifteen. Jazzy had looked more mature than her years, and no one
had stopped her. It had taken her four days to reach Miami hitchhiking. She‘d been lucky with her rides -no gropers, no guns. Not that it mattered much once she reached the city. Even the guy at the employment
agency copped a feel while she was taking a typing test. Which, she‘d had to admit, was a silly thing to do,
since she‘d never used a typewriter in her life before the test. The employment guy must have figured that
out, maybe thought that he could get away with a quickie in exchange for an interview, but he‘d been
wrong. Jazzy had knocked out one of the guy‘s teeth with her elbow before making her exit from the world
of office work.
She took a job as a waitress for a while, but Jazzy had never been cut out for regular work, and
when two of her roommates had suggested what they called a ―party pay day,‖ she had gone along.
The three of them had serviced seven men. The sex wasn‘t anything new. Even at fifteen, little
Faith Snyder had already experienced nearly everything the pleasures of the flesh had to offer. Sex to Jazzy
was neither pleasurable nor repulsive. Her mother had taken the occasional man to bed for some extra
money during the times when her father was gone. Sex was something women did when they wanted
something. And because men always wanted sex, women always had something to offer.
She had seen what the Life did to other girls, though, tired them out, made them bitter. It was easy
to get that way. Hookers got raped all the time. They got robbed. There was always some creep trying to
force himself in on the action. Men beat them, whether they were clients or pimps or somebody‘s
boyfriend. The Life made you old. It made you wary.
Jazzy had fought against that from the beginning. Not the wariness—that was a necessity.
Between the pimps, the pervs, the johns, the cops, and the hookers, there weren‘t a lot of ways to stay safe.
So she had accepted the bad side of the Life—the beatings, the rapes, the taking of her money—without
judgment. That was just the way things were.
But when she walked down the street, she did not think of herself as a streetwalker. She was,
rather, an object of desire, a fantasy woman who was sought by the inner heart of every man. Even before
she learned about the heteiras of ancient Rome, Jazzy grew her hair to waist length. Instead of the short
skirts and cheap bangles the other girls wore to work, Jazzy wore long skirts with high slits and black
stockings and gossamer blouses with layers like veils.
She did not look like anyone else, anywhere. In the early sixties, when fashionable women were
dressing like hookers in shiny short skirts made of space-age fabrics and hair that had been stiffened into
sculpture, Jazzy looked like some kind of dream woman.
Men luxuriated in her mystery as if it were her hair or her clothing, soft, fluid, giving. Her
clientele quickly became too upscale for her peers. She became famous, in her way. She no longer had to
go out onto the streets. Now the men came to her, in her balconied apartment in a good neighborhood.
Jazzy—she had taken the name ‗Jasmine‘ by then, and one of her clients had shortened it—might
have flourished as a call girl, and perhaps a madam in future years, if she had not heard a piece of music.
She had been looking for the apartment of a client. Once she saw the directory instead of a
doorman, she realized that she was in the wrong building. She was headed out the door when she first
heard the music. It was unlike any music she had ever heard before in her life, with strange twangy string
instruments and droning backgrounds punctuated by drums that sounded like pancakes slapping against oil
drums. The sound was so weird that she almost burst out laughing.
What kind of music was that?
She moved closer to its source: a door with a small sign in interesting lettering that read ―Tahya,
Danse Orientale‖.
Hesitantly, feeling like a guilty child, she turned the doorknob, and entered another world.
The music, much louder inside the room, enveloped her. It was no longer something outside of
herself, but became instead a part of her, like her very breath. It infused her with its rhythm, its teasing
sensuality, its compelling, exotic beauty. For a moment, Jazzy stood transfixed, feeling the music shooting
through her like stars.
And then she saw the dancers. There were ten of them, ten women of all ages and sizes, dressed in
the most outlandish clothing she had ever seen. Gossamer, sheer, threaded with gold and silver, skin-baring
garments grazing exposed bellies and ample, overflowing bosoms. She blinked. It was as if she had entered
a land of pure, intense beauty, a place of women preparing for men, but in which men had no place.
A tall FemBot of a woman with curly red hair that spilled over her shoulders—not at all the sort of
creature Jazzy imagined would dance to such music—walked over to her. The walk was businesslike but
still sensual, still supremely womanly, and the red-haired woman smiled as if Jazzy‘s interruption of her
class were both natural and welcome.
―Would you like to join us?‖ she asked.
Not ―May I help you?‖ or ―Are you looking for someone?‖ or ―This is a private session‖ or any of
the other things people say to keep curious onlookers out of their special spaces. It was as if the room and
everything in it had been waiting for Jazzy to come into it.
Jazzy put down her handbag, took off her jacket, and never thought about her client again.
(Extra Space)
She stretched languidly until her feet touched the rug beside the bed. She didn‘t know why she
had sent Andras out for an air conditioner, really. Maybe she‘d just been irritated with him. He was sweet,
but there were times when even the sight of his big panting-dog face was more than Jazzy could stand.
On the rug were a pair of dainty embroidered slippers. Jazzy filled them with one smooth motion
of her feet, then opened the door. The music—Forrest‘s music—was like smoke. She could smell it. She
ran the tip of her tongue along her lips. Delicious.
Delicious.
The music pulled her the way a snake charmer‘s flute drew a cobra out of its basket and into the
open.
How had she crossed the expanse of ground between her trailer and the one Forrest McCormick
shared with Katherine? The tiny slippers had hardly moved. And when the music stopped so that Forrest
could answer the door, it continued to play in Jazzy‘s mind. Soft, gentle music, hip-rolling music for
breasts and sweat and a man‘s hard longing, music that moaned deep in the throat, deep, deep beneath.
(Extra Space)
She had once felt the same way about Andras, experienced the same stratospheric energy, the
same confusion, the knowledge that what was about to happen would wreak chaos, and was therefore too
tantalizing to resist.
She had known she wanted Andras Kodaly the first time she saw him.
He had not been a client; he could never have afforded her. Besides, those days were long behind
Jazzy. At thirty-eight, she made almost as good a living dancing as she had in the Life. Oriental dancing—
or belly dancing, as unknowledgeable people called it—was its own community, with conventions and
exhibitions at which Jazzy had quickly demonstrated her marked native ability. She was asked to perform
all over the country, but she kept her home in Miami.
She rented an apartment in a big house with a wraparound porch in the Coconut Grove section of
the city. Three months later the front porch collapsed, and Jazzy found herself surrounded by construction
workers. Around the two carpenters who measured and explored like surgeons, milled a small army of
sullen laborers picking up debris and hauling it away. They were silent as ants, these laborers, their backs
bent and dark with sweat.
Jazzy had leaned out of her upstairs bedroom window just as Andras took off a baseball cap
proclaiming him to be the world‘s largest source of natural gas, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
He was balding on top, but what remained of his hair grew down to his shoulders, pulled back into
a Genghis Khan ponytail. He looked up as if he sensed something in the air, and Jazzy smiled.
She was leaning over a window box where red geraniums bloomed, just covering her bosom.
Jazzy was fully aware of the effect the red flowers had against the dark cascade of her hair and the smooth
expanse of her skin.
―Oh, my God,‖ Andras said in his innocent lust.
Jazzy‘s heart melted. Such undisguised appreciation should not go unrewarded. Here was someone
who saw the meaning of beauty. And it was not just her beauty, although that was what Andras thought he
saw. Jazzy, who had been born with a finely tuned sense of the beautiful, knew. Most men liked beautiful
women, of course; that was why women made themselves beautiful. But if asked, these men would not be
able to say why they craved the quality of beauty in women. For their own enhancement, perhaps, like a
good watch, or a pair of Ferragamo shoes. Or maybe it as a more primitive urge to mate with the best
genetic package available.
But for Andras, Jazzy‘s beauty was more than that. Jazzy‘s appearance, and therefore Jazzy
herself was, for him, an object of worship. This was something Jazzy knew from the moment when Andras‘
upturned eyes gazed on the vision of her, poised like some Byzantine icon of the Madonna, framed by the
window and its red, living flowers.
To Andras, she was a goddess. And that was what Faith Snyder, soon to become Jasmine Kodaly,
had been born to be.
(Extra Space)
Forrest worshipped her, too. Jazzy could see it in the eyes of this sweet little man who was so
different from herself. She imagined him eating oatmeal as a child, prepared by a fastidious mother who
saved pennies in a jar and frowned disapprovingly at strangers.
Forrest‘s mother also would have frowned mightily at the thought of her son gazing devotedly at
Jazzy, with her flash, her illusion, her legs that had opened for so many men, her capacity to elicit pleasure
from their secret centers, as if she were drawing water from the interior of a cactus.
That had not been necessary with Andras, of course. He was a man, redolent with male juices,
ripe, strong, potent. Andras had slid between Jazzy‘s legs as easily as butter on a hot potato, his joy melting
into her as unreservedly as that of a child engrossed in play. He did not have sex to please her, but only
himself—totally, greedily seeking his own satisfaction. This, they both discovered, was the only way Jazzy,
who was hard-wired to be an object of desire, could achieve orgasm.
She was satisfying Forrest now. With each small, guilty moan, each reluctant flutter of his eyelids
that gave him the appearance of a dreamer enthralled in some monumental reverie, Jazzy sighed deeply and
set her lips to working harder.
It had been a long time since she had cheated on Andras. For a time, her extramarital liaisons had
been a matter of course. It was not that she did not love Andras. She did, and completely. But even his
unflagging, doglike devotion was not enough to assure Jazzy of her desirability.
When she had worked as a dancer in Middle Eastern restaurants or in community festivals, she
had felt the lustful gazes of the men in the audience caressing her, undressing her. But when the dance was
done, those men turned back to their meals which had grown cold, and their wives who had begun to fidget
uncomfortably, knowing that their husbands were secretly, silently comparing them to Jazzy and finding
their mates woefully lacking. There would be a moment of tension, and then the men would smile benignly
at the women they were legally bound to. There would be a gesture, a lift of the eyebrows, perhaps, a subtle
flood of relief and the acknowledgement that the fellow was a man, after all, and not merely a husband.
And then all thought of Jazzy was gone. Whatever desire she had kindled never burst into real flame.
And so she found men, at parties and bars, who touched her with hot hands and kissed her with
mouths redolent of happy hour whiskey, who came, groaning, wild-hipped, their business suits draped over
a chair in an anonymous motel room, their wallets well hidden, filled with photos of children riding ponies
or scampering in the spray of a garden hose.
Sometimes they paid her, even when she was no longer in the Life. When they offered money,
Jazzy took it. She had never thought of prostitution as work in any real sense. Work was what a person did
for money. Jazzy, who watched her men pant with exhaustion as their trembling hands touched her perfect
breasts for one last moment of spent pleasure, was only accepting gifts.
Throughout those unfaithful years of their marriage, Andras had not complained. Jazzy assumed
that he found his way to other women now and then, but never feared that he would leave her because of
his indiscretions or her own.
But when they ended, when the men who offered Jazzy afternoon motel trysts changed subtly
from well dressed business executives to salesmen, and then to loud drunks, and finally to cruel-mouthed
young men who talked to her and then slowly looked at one another with laughter shining out of their eyes,
Jazzy began to panic. During those dark times, Jazzy had spent much time in front of the mirror, evaluating
her body. The breasts had grown larger and softer, yes, but still attractive, she told herself. She was softer
in the belly, too, despite the dancing. And dimples along her thighs (although those could be covered). And
her hair, of course, nearly all white beneath the color so that if she did not scrupulously dye the roots, her
scalp would appear to be striped.
―Andras.‖ Again and again she would stand before him, naked, not seducing him but only asking
with the innocence and fear of a child if she was still the fairest of them all. ―What do you think?‖
And Andras would hide his surprise that she was asking him again, and put on a practiced leer.
―Oh, baby, you better come here, ‗cause I got a hard woody for you,‖ he would say. After the outside sex
ended for Jazzy, Andras loved her more tenderly.
She had not opened her legs for another man for six years, and, if the truth be told, she had not
missed it. But the encounter with Forrest was too good, too easy, to resist.
His lover, or girlfriend, or whatever – the woman named Katherine who had left her rich husband
to be with Forrest – was so proper that Jazzy could not even picture her sweating beneath a man‘s body.
Katherine Davis had no breasts to speak of. She had thin lips and clean fingernails and no body odor. In
time, she would become one of those chiseled-featured old women who ate only vegetables and wore only
black clothing. If Forrest could get a hard on for that, Jazzy intuited, he would not object to Jazzy‘s own
jiggling breasts and dimpled thighs.
She bit him softly, purring, caressing him with a touch as light as butterfly wings. She laughed for
him, shocking him with her loudness. She allowed him to smell her. She opened herself to him like a
flower, and showed this sweet man the inner heart of passion.
Forrest was like a child, dizzy, giddy, aware that he was falling into a strange new place but utterly
unable to stop his fall.
―Oh, God,‖ he cried out, and Jazzy smiled. That was what they always said when she had them
helpless.
Chapter Twenty Five
Katherine
Katherine always drove the way she had when she‘d first learned: her body leaning forward, close
to the wheel, hands at 10 and 2 o‘clock. An old song by some forgotten 70‘s British rock group was playing
on the radio, and she unconsciously sang along.
It had been a good meeting. Better than good. Far from exposing her as an adulterous fraud with
no money, SOTA had instead offered her the chairmanship for the year‘s fundraiser.
Of course, it had all been at Victoria Tanner‘s expense, so Katherine supposed it hadn‘t been a
good meeting for everyone, but still... She smiled and turned up the volume on the chirpy Brit-rock tune.
Victoria had been voted out nearly unanimously, despite the undeniable success of her showhouses.
―The commitment of the Society Of The Arts to community service has many facets besides
fundraising,‖ was how Bunny Oglethorpe, SOTA‘s president, countered Victoria‘s suggestion for this
year‘s proposed showhouse. Katherine had been stunned. She had no idea that Victoria had alienated the
other members of the group as much as she had Katherine.
Actually, Bunny had been approached by nearly every member of SOTA, informing her that the
individual would not be available to volunteer to work in another showhouse headed by Victoria Tanner.
It seemed that Victoria had become a sort of Morlock to the Society‘s elite Eloi, a creature of
darkness, crude, unwelcome, and—dare the word even be spoken — common, who nevertheless ensured
the fiscal solvency as well as the moral justification of the group. Victoria and her showhouses brought in
the bucks, and so she was tolerated at the luncheons (where she shamelessly bullied members who were in
the throes of divorce into selling their mansions through her real estate office) and the dinners (where she
shamelessly flirted with the recent ex-husbands of the same members) and the meetings (where she pried
into everyone‘s business and gossiped, shamelessly). Had Katherine been a part of the informal but
nevertheless powerful network of SOTA heavyweights who determined through innuendo, gossip, and the
all but unspoken sense of what was and was not deemed seemly for the ladies who breathed the rarified air
of the Society—she would have known that the group‘s tolerance for Victoria‘s ham-fisted, moneymaking
ways was at an end.
Bunny Oglethorpe had herself been an anomaly, a woman who had worked as a CPA before
marrying her wealthy husband. It was she who had convinced the group to accept Victoria Tanner as a
member in the first place, on the practical if novel theory that a successful realtor would help to enlarge the
membership of the Society. And then this strange bottom-line-oriented president went even further in all
but forcing the membership to accept Victoria‘s showhouse idea in order to make money.
This was a new concept to most of the women in SOTA. Making money was something their
husbands did. It was important enough, they supposed, since one had to make money before one could
spend it, although none of the members had actually joined the Society in order to make money, for
themselves or anyone else. Most of them believed that selling high-priced tickets to exclusive dinners
which they themselves (along with their husbands, whom these women rarely saw otherwise) would attend
was sufficient in terms of fundraising. For them, Victoria‘s showhouses, which brought the group‘s
revenues into the stratosphere, were like the straw that Rumplestiltskin, in the form of a tacky realtor, spun
into gold. A special committee had to be formed just to find ways to spend the money.
For the first two years, SOTA was abuzz with excitement about how much money they were
making, and how much good that money was doing for the community by purchasing two new late
seventeenth century paintings for the museum and repairing the plaster leafwork in the third floor cornices;
but after that, the members‘ telephone lines began to vibrate with dissatisfaction.
Victoria Tanner, for all her mercantile expertise, was not one of them. When Bunny Oglethorpe
mentioned her latest diet, Victoria immediately suggested, despite Bunny‘s frozen smile, that using a
smaller plate often fooled overeaters into believing that they were eating more food. At that momentary but
intensely humiliating moment, Victoria was placed on President Bunny‘s Green Mile.
―Also, we must not continue to place the entire burden of SOTA‘s fiscal responsibility upon one
pair of shoulders, however capable those limbs may be,‖ she said, smiling sweetly at Victoria.
Victoria stood, impassive, by the door, her arms crossed over her chest like an Egyptian
mummy‘s. She met Bunny‘s gaze directly, without a single blink, as if to say, don’t think I don’t recognize
this condescending pap for the bullshit it is.
―Let‘s all give Victoria a big hand for all she‘s done for us,‖ Bunny gushed. The hall rippled with
polite applause, which caused currents of expensive perfume to circulate. ―And I know we‘ll all want to be
on the committee Victoria chooses to be on for our next project, which brings me to the question.‖
Quickly disengaging her gaze from Victoria‘s, she raised her eyebrows coquettishly. ―Any
suggestions?‖
Go fuck yourself, Victoria thought, still smiling. Deep, deep within her chestnut-sized heart, she
felt the awkward stirrings of the steel worker‘s daughter being politely turned away from the banquet to
which she had brought the food.
―The chair recognizes Katherine Davis,‖ Bunny chirped.
Katherine‘s hand was raised tentatively, as if volunteering to answer a geography question to
which she may or may not know the answer. ―Well, I was thinking—not that this would be anything like
Victoria‘s wonderful showhouses, of course—but that maybe we could host a fashion show.‖
Victoria rolled her eyes. How like Katherine to come up with a Barbie event.
―Troutman‘s department store could supply the clothes,‖ Katherine went on. ―It would be good
publicity for them.‖
―Not to mention that this group is probably responsible for half of Troutman‘s revenue,‖ Bunny
Oglethorpe added. There were giggles all around.
―And we could be the models.‖
Katherine had just come up with the idea at that moment, and when it burst out of her mouth, she
was as surprised as the other members, and as delighted. Her eyes grew wide, and her mouth stretched into
the O of a little girl unwrapping her first party dress. Katherine‘s hands came together in front of her
mouth. The atmosphere in the room blossomed. The high notes of Patou and Chanel intensified. All those
women who struggled daily, year after year, to maintain the same dress size they‘d worn in college, at last
had a way to show off their hard-won, six-days-at-the-gym bodies. It was Christmas come early to the
Society Of The Arts.
―Troutman‘s will probably give us a discount if we buy the clothes we model,‖ Bunny mused.
―Then we‘d only want the Better Dresses department, of course,‖ Brooke Norman said.
―And Better Sportswear,‖ someone else offered. ―We‘d want Liz Claiborne and Calvin Klein.‖
―I‘ll call Alan Troutman myself,‖ Bunny said. ―And I think we all agree that our own Katherine
Davis ought to head this year‘s fundraiser?‖
The room burst into applause. Real applause, Victoria noted, unlike the smattering given to thank
her for raising nearly a half million dollars over the past three years.
She left quietly, although everyone was aware of her departure. A collective sigh seemed to pass
through the room, releasing more puffs of expensive perfume and the rustle of shopping bags filled with
tissue paper.
Bunny Oglethorpe beamed. The village ogre had been dispatched cleanly, publicly, and politely,
thanks entirely to Bunny‘s administrative prowess. She was a brilliant president, and everyone in the
Society knew it. As for the new project, who cared if it didn‘t make the kind of profit Victoria‘s
showhouses brought? There was enough surplus to carry them for another two years.
Besides, who better to salve the wounds left by Victoria‘s autocratic ways than Katherine Davis?
Katherine, who accepted everyone‘s help and suggestions, and would work like a dog to make everyone
happy? No wonder the Davises were so happily married, the president thought.
(Extra Space)
Andras staggered only slightly beneath the weight of the ARCTICOOL slung over his shoulder.
From a distance he had the appearance of a hunter returning to the tribe in triumph with a kill of wildebeest
or antelope.
Cynthia stood in his way, arms crossed over her chest. ―I hope you realize you‘re adding to the
pollution of our planet with that,‖ she said.
Andras grinned. ―You and Big Bebe can come cool off at my place any time,‖ he said.
―I prefer to live in the climate my body was made for.‖
―Whatever, Andras said, puckering his lips at her as he sidled past.
―Cynthia! Cynthia!‖ Katherine called as she rushed across the gravel, picking up her legs like a
stork to protect her shoes. ―Do you know where Bebe is?‖ she asked excitedly.
Cynthia gestured with her head toward the lake, where Bebe‘s powerful arms were pistoning
through the water. ―Why don‘t you join her?‖ she asked cattily. ―I‘m sure she‘d like to see you naked.‖
Katherine laughed, oblivious to the barb. ―Oh, no. Swimming isn‘t my thing. You should see my
hair afterward! Anyway, I just wanted to tell Bebe that SOTA‘s doing a fashion show...‖ She paused,
smiling, to allow Cynthia to take in this momentous information. ―... and I thought maybe she could give us
some pointers.‖
―Bebe?‖ Andras looked incredulous. ―Is this a fashion show for dykes?‖
Katherine laughed, shook her hands in front of her as if she were ridding them of bugs, and said,
―Oh, Andras.‖
Cynthia reddened in silence, her eyes narrowed.
―Well, whatever,‖ Andras said. ―I‘ve got to get going. Jazzie‘s waiting for this.‖ He thumped the
air conditioner. ―Good luck with your thing.‖
―Oh, thanks,‖ Katherine said. ―I can‘t wait to tell Forrest.‖
(Extra Space)
―Oh, God.‖
―Yes.‖
―Oh, God, I‘m coming.‖
―Yes, my darling.‖
―Oh, my God.‖
―Give it to me.‖
―Oh God. God.‖
―Give it –‖
―God, it‘s –‖
―Yes.‖
―Katherine.‖
―What?‖
Jazzy first noticed the change in light. Forrest‘s face, its muscles struggling for release as he
moved beneath her, became suddenly illuminated. In the next instant, the hard, dark, climaxing eyes had
become wide and scared. Boy eyes waiting for Mommy‘s manicured hand to slap him.
―What is it? Why did you call me —‖ Jazzy looked over her shoulder. Katherine‘s silhouetted
figure stood in the doorway, her fingers splayed wide so that, against the bright light, they looked like
knives.
―Oh, God,‖ Forrest said again as Katherine began to scream.
(Extra Space)
She seemed to scream forever. She was screaming as Jazzy dressed and put on her tiny goldthreaded slippers and slid bonelessly past her. She screamed until Andras, who had laid down the air
conditioner and come running in response to her screaming, encountered Jazzy slinking out of the trailer.
He pushed past her to reach Katherine, who was still screaming and staring wildly at Forrest, who
lay naked and helpless on the sofa.
Cynthia entered right behind Andras, blinking at the weird tableau. It looked like some sort of
postmodern opera, with the soprano, goddess-like in her outrage, shrieking a single note as the wretched
mortal writhed before her like a white slug on the pink velvet fainting couch, trying miserably to cover his
private parts.
―Are you all right?‖ Andras asked, tentatively placing his hands on Katherine‘s arms and then,
after a moment‘s hesitation during which Katherine continued to scream blindly into his face, shook her
hard.
Katherine‘s head bobbled. She made a choking sound, and then the air rang with unaccustomed
silence. The screaming had ended.
―They were... they were in bed,‖ Katherine said in a croak, turning her head slowly toward Andras
as if her head and body were disconnected. ―Forrest and your wife.‖
For a moment, Andras had no reaction. It had not been the first occasion of Jazzy‘s infidelity. But
it had been the first time with a neighbor. And the first time she had been caught red-handed, as it were.
And it was the first time Andras had been publicly humiliated because of it.
Wordlessly he patted Katherine‘s shoulders in reassurance, then left the trailer and crossed the
distance to his own dwelling with loping, angry strides.
Cynthia followed him. ―Now don‘t do anything stupid.‖ She had been standing outside the trailer,
listening to the unfolding drama. ―I mean, don‘t hit her, Andras. If you hit her, I‘ll call the police, do you
understand?‖
Andras said nothing. He burst into the trailer where Jazzy stood, carefully blank-faced, oddly
holding a veil in front of her as if it were a shield.
―Don‘t hit me,‖ Jazzy said in a low voice. ―If you hit me, Cynthia will call the cops.‖
―Yeah,‖ Andras said. ―I heard her, too.‖ He stared at Jazzy for a moment, the corners of his mouth
turned down in a ludicrous caricature of sadness. ―You know I‘m not going to hit you,‖ he said quietly. ―I
never have, and I never will.‖
He walked to the bedroom dresser, where he was permitted one drawer for his clothes, and
scooped everything in it into the crook of his left elbow. Then he cast about for a container of some kind,
settling finally on a beaded tote bag. ―You‘ve broke my heart, Jazzy,‖ he said.
(Extra Space)
The tears standing in Andras‘ eyes caused Jazzy to look wavy, as if she were underwater. It was
this image of her, half-hidden by a veil, shimmering and unknowable, that Andras carried along with the
beaded tote bag containing his possessions, into his truck.
As he drove out of the parking lot, he wiped his face on his sleeve.
―Hey! Hey!‖ In the rearview mirror he saw Cynthia running behind him. He sighed and brought
the truck to a stop. ―Look—‖ he began, but Cynthia jumped on the running board and put her arms around
his neck.
―I‘m not going to ask you if you‘re okay, because I know you‘re not. But I‘m your friend, and I‘m
not going to leave you to go crazy by yourself. You know what I‘m saying?‖
In that instant, Andras saw Cynthia as he believed she truly was: An angel. Her face was so clean,
so virginal, that Andras actually felt her purity washing over him. God had sent her to him during this dark
hour. There was no other explanation for it. He took his hands off the wheel and wrapped his arms around
her, then kissed her with all the passion in his shaking, terrified soul.
Cynthia struggled at first, shocked and vaguely repelled; but as she sank into the experience, the
feel of his full lips, the surprising sweetness of his breath, the ropy, tough feel of his arms around her, she
began to warm to him despite herself.
―Why... why are you doing this?‖ she whispered, trying to catch her breath.
―I don‘t know.‖
―Well, I do.‖ Gently she pushed him away. You just want to get even with Jazzy.‖
He shrugged. ―So what? Hey, wouldn‘t you like to make love to a man?‖ He reached for her
again.
―I‘ve made love with men.‖
―Not the way I do it.‖
―Oh, right. You‘re so special.‖
―Maybe not special. But I can love you like you‘ve never been loved, Miss Cynthia.‖ He kissed
her again. ―You never smell like perfume.‖
―What?‖
―Grass and wood smoke and clean. Those are your smells.‖
―Andras—‖
―Come with me, Cynthia.‖
She frowned. ―Don‘t be stupid.‖ She tried to pull away, but he held her close.
―Please,‖ he breathed into her mouth. ―Be with me.‖
In spite of the transparency of the situation, Cynthia felt strangely tempted, just as she had on the
night she‘d spent with Alvar and Selena Swenson, the night she‘d learned that she was a lesbian.
Or was she? Here she was with this man, this forbidden man. By embracing him, Cynthia was
betraying not only his partner, but her own. It was all forbidden, wrong, bad. Deliciously, irredeemably
bad.
―Andras—‖ Her heart jumped. Filling the rearview mirror was Bebe, hands on hips, lips pursed,
head cocked, annoyed with Cynthia as usual, waiting to see what her dumb roommate was going to do next.
She’s going to start whistling for me, Cynthia thought. Here, doggie, doggie... She kissed Andras.
―Let me in,‖ she said.
―That‘s my girl.‖
The truck skittered and backfired and finally set off down the dirt road, creating a wall of dust
between it and Bebe, who had not moved.
―Hey, Cyn,‖ Andras asked as they pulled out onto the highway. ―Got any money?‖
Chapter Twenty Six
Forrest
Katherine sat white-faced on a kitchen chair while Forrest took a sleeping bag from the closet.
―Katherine, please—‖
―Just go,‖ she said coldly, although her voice cracked. Red blotches bloomed on her cheeks.
―We‘re going to have to talk sooner or later,‖ he said.
―No, we won‘t.‖
Forrest sighed, looking like a penitent child. Tears stood in his eyes. ―Please—‖
―Go!‖ Katherine stood up, her elegant fashion model‘s figure silhouetted against the strong light
streaming in through the window. She was weeping openly, her eye makeup streaking over her cheeks in
zebra stripes. She swatted him with ineffectual hands. ―Just go!‖
Forrest looked up at her from beneath lowered brows. There was nothing he could say. He had
been possessed, seduced by a siren, too inexperienced with women to know how to refuse Jazzie. And then
once it had started, there had seemed to be nothing he could do except to go the distance. It was as if he had
stepped into a movie and suddenly become one of the actors in it.
It had always been acting, really, he realized. Forrest had never believed that he loved Jazzie, or
even the act of love she was performing on him. It had been the play, the acting itself, that had been
irresistible.
But how could he tell Katherine that?
―All right,‖ he said, feeling as if his soul were leaving him with those words. ―I‘ll go.‖ He picked
up the neatly rolled sleeping bag and the red K-Mart Tent-In-A-Bag that Katherine had set out near the
door, and left the trailer.
Like a homeless bum, he thought. On the steps he called back over his shoulder, ―I don‘t have any
food.‖ It had sounded pathetic, he knew, but she had heard him. Her footsteps were walking toward the
door. He decided to milk the moment. It was all he had. ―If you could just give me something to eat....‖
―How about this?‖ a man said before his fist crashed into Forrest‘s face.
The Tent-In-A -Bag went flying. Forrest instinctively cradled the rolled sleeping bag as he went
down, scraping his face on the gravelly earth.
―I believe it‘s called a Knuckle Sandwich.‖ The man standing over him grinned.
Katherine opened the trailer door a crack. She gasped. ―Richard,‖ she whispered, white-faced.
―Richard?‖ Forrest repeated. ―Your husband?‖ He rolled onto his side as Richard made a move to
kick him.
―Don‘t!‖ Katherine pleaded.
―Why not?‖ Richard roared. ―The shit.‖ He waved a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black over them
both. ―You two shits.‖
With a little yelp of dismay, Katherine shut the door, leaving Forrest to fend for himself.
Richard Davis was obviously drunk, wearing what must have been a good suit several weeks ago,
when he had first put it on. His face was covered with an unkempt beard that was gray in spots and
appeared to be stiff with food around his mouth. While Forrest sat up, the blood from his smashed nose
dripping onto his sleeping bag, Richard staggered around the area, guzzling the contents of the bottle.
Forrest shook his head to clear it, flinging droplets of blood all over himself. For all his proven
violence, Richard did not look particularly menacing. Another cosmic joke, Forrest thought. He‘d been
beaten to a pulp by a man who was as flabby and white as himself. Richard wore rimless glasses, and his
shirt had a little polo man on the pocket. His lips were scaly. He was going to fat. Nevertheless, he was
Katherine‘s legal husband who had been deceived and abandoned. Even as Forrest was wiping his bloody
nose with a used tissue, he conceded that Richard had only been exercising his marital rights.
As for his part, Richard stepped over Forrest‘s inert form and strode manfully up the trailer steps.
He pounded on the flimsy door with both fists.
―Are you happy?‖ he bellowed. ―Is this the life you wanted?‖ He gestured so expansively that he
nearly fell off the stairs. ―For thirty years I supported you and asked for nothing in return—‖
―Now, Richard, this isn‘t necessary,‖ Forrest said, scrambling off the ground.
―Shut up, you dyu la ma.‖
―Beg pardon?‖
―It‘s Chinese,‖ Katherine said, opening the door. She covered her face with her hands. ―It‘s
crude.‖
―Get inside, Katherine,‖ Forrest said. In Richard‘s state, he was likely to do anything. ―I‘ll take
care of this.‖
Richard snorted. ―And that’s what you leave me for,‖ he went on. ―That.‖ He waved the bottle in
Forrest‘s direction. ―If I‘d known you wanted to live in a trailer with a pauper, I would have quit my job
long ago.‖
―That‘s enough,‖ Forrest said, weaving upward to his full erect height of fifty-seven inches.
―Do I have to hit you again, Bub?‖ Richard shouted. His arms windmilled.
Katherine shoved him backward. ―Oh, shut up, for God‘s sake!‖
Richard landed on his buttocks, then rolled to protect the bottle. Katherine shrieked. She had
surprised even herself.
She had thought so many times about how it would be, the inevitable confrontation with her legal
husband. She had always known that, as an adulteress, she would have to submit to any punishment
Richard would mete out.
Yet when the moment actually came, when her husband lay sprawled next to her lover on the
ground at her feet, she felt oddly at peace. With herself, with men, with the world in general.
―You know what, I‘m sick of both of you,‖ she said levelly. ―If you‘re so damn mad, Richard,
then go call the police, or shoot me, or do whatever it is you need to do to feel better. But I know that you
didn‘t like living with me any better than I liked living with you, and yes, this is better.‖ She shook her
head in her indignation, causing her earrings, if not her hair, to swing around wildly.
―This trailer is more home to me than our house ever was.‖ She turned to Forrest. ―And you‘re a
two-faced weakling. If that cheap tart has what you‘re looking for‖—she jerked her chin toward Jazzie‘s
trailer—―then be my guest, because I don‘t want you anymore.‖
Then she went inside and closed the door behind her.
Richard sputtered for a moment, casting about for some appropriately indignant remark, some
sarcastic barb that would wound her the way his fist had wounded her lover. He had thought of a number of
clever things to say while driving toward the trailer park, but they had all fled from his mind. Besides,
Katherine had not exhibited the decency to remain outside long enough to listen to them. Plus she had
pushed him off the steps into the dirt.
He took another swig of scotch.
―That‘s pretty good stuff to be using to drown your sorrows,‖ Forrest said.
―Fuck you.‖
Forrest shrugged. He picked up the red K-Mart tent and his sleeping bag.
―Hey.‖ Richard waved the bottle in front of him. ―No hard feelings, okay?‖
―Fuck you,‖ Forrest said, walking away.
―Fair.‖ Richard trotted after him. ―Want a drink?‖
Forrest turned to blast him with a torrent of insults, but since he could think of nothing, he took the
bottle and drank from it. ―Jesus,‖ he said.
―Amateur,‖ Richard said. Then he crashed to the ground, unconscious.
(Extra Space)
Henya was the first person with the courage to approach Richard‘s inert body. She cradled his
head on her lap and was stroking his face when he came to.
―Are you an angel?‖ he asked tearily.
―I‘m a nurse,‖Henya said.
―Oh. For a second I thought maybe...‖ His eyes shifted.
―That God was black?‖ She laughed. ―Guess that must have set your little heart to beating, didn‘t
it?‖
He sniffed loudly. ―No. I just thought that maybe I was dead.‖ He sobbed.
―Are you lost?‖ Henya asked.
Richard shook his head wetly, spraying tears and mucous.
―Well, whatever it is, it‘s probably not as bad as you think. Can I do anything for you? Call
someone, maybe?‖
Richard was sobbing louder. ―I‘ve got nobody to call. Nobody.‖
―For Christ‘s sake,‖ Forrest said, crawling out of the red pup tent. ―This blubbering
nincompoop—‖
Henya‘s hand went to her mouth in shock. ―Forrest! What‘s happened to your face? And why are
you in that tent?‖
―He punched me, and Katherine threw me out.‖
―You punched him!‖ Henya repeated, shocked.
―He‘s Katherine‘s husband,‖ Forest said.
Henya‘s appalled gaze slid toward Forrest. ―Oh, my word,‖ she whispered.
―Can you cook Chinese food?‖ Richard asked suddenly.
―What?‖ Henya withered at his breath. ―I guess I can,‖ she offered. ―Stir fry. Is that what you‘re
talking about?‖
―No.‖ Richard hung his head. ―That wouldn‘t begin to do it justice.‖ He looked up at her suddenly,
beseechingly. ―God, that sounded terrible, didn‘t it? I‘m so sorry. I didn‘t mean to imply that you‘re a bad
cook. Only that you‘re not Chinese.‖
―Well, that‘s just a fact. I‘m not Chinese, and never will be. But nobody‘s ever called me a bad
cook.‖ She patted him on the hand. ―I‘ll go fix you something.‖ She glared at Forrest for a moment, then
softened. ―You, too, I suppose. I don‘t know what you two fools have been up to, but you‘ve got to eat all
the same. Just wait for me here.‖
Richard‘s eyes followed her as she walked to her trailer. ―She‘s got an Airstream,‖ he said.
―Brought it with her,‖ Forrest said.
―So she ...like... wanted to live here?‖
―Guess so,‖ Forrest said.
Richard took a deep drink. ―Does Katherine like it here?‖ he asked, careful not to look at Forrest.
―I don‘t know. I thought so. It was wrong, though. You had a right to come.‖
Richard shook his head. ―I was never around. She deserved better.‖
―Don‘t say that.‖
Richard shrugged. ―I‘m just saying I understand.‖ He held out the bottle. ―Join me?‖
Forrest thought about it, rubbed the bruise on his face, thought about it some more. ―Sure,‖ he said
at last. He pointed to the red pup tent. ―Cocktails in the living room?‖
(Extra Space)
―How‘d you find out where we were?‖ Forrest asked as he passed the bottle back to Richard.
―Oh, Christ, everyone knows. The neighbors, the kids at your school.‖ He made a noise with his
lips. ―What‘d you think? That the two of you were some kind of secret lovers, hiding away from the
world?‖
―Well... yes,‖ Forrest said.
Richard smiled. ―Must be nice.‖
―Look, I‘m sorry, Richard. Really I am.‖
Richard waved him away grandly. ―It‘s all right. Actually, I think you love her more than I ever
did.‖ He took a drink. ―She‘s like that house we—I—live in. I‘m not comfortable there. Living with
Katherine is like being in a room full of porcelain. There are so many ways to fuck up. She breaks too
easily. And the damage is always irreversible.‖
Forrest wasn‘t sure he followed what Richard was saying. ―Then why are you here?‖ he asked.
―I‘m lonely,‖ Richard said. ―The house is full of flowers—on the wallpaper, on the dishes, on all
the little do-dads around the place. Gives me the creeps.‖ He curled a pillow beneath his head. ―Mind?‖
―Be my guest.‖
Richard tried to pass the bottle to Forrest, but fell asleep during the handoff, spilling the last few
drops squarely on Forrest‘s crotch. He snorted once. ―I had a wife, you know.‖
Forrest plucked at his trousers, as if pulling the fabric away from his skin would cause it to dry
faster. ―Yes, I know. I said I was sorry.‖
―She died.‖
Forrest did not answer. If the man was going to be maudlin, it was better just not to go there with
him.
―My boys are grown, and my wife is dead.‖
Forrest made a face. ―Richard, you have no children.‖
―UCLA,‖ Richard said, then began to snore loudly and regularly.
(Extra Space)
By the time Henya arrived with a pot of chicken stew and biscuits, the two men were fast asleep.
She looked over at Katherine Davis‘ trailer, washed and surrounded by flowers, and then down at
Katherine‘s husband and lover sleeping side by side in the little tent at Katherine‘s feet.
―My, my,‖ Henya said. Some women could just do anything, she supposed.
Part V
Lammas
August 1
The first harvest, signifying the death of the Corn King, the symbol of mortal pleasure. A time of
abundance, but with the caution that plentitude is a harbinger of change. The crops are cut, the growth
process is finished. It is a period of confusion, of getting things ready before it’s too late. Only one thing is
certain, and that is that everything comes at a price.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Mo
Mo awoke before dawn, as she often did, with the voice of Mother shouting stridently in her ears.
You have no one, Mother said. No one who wants you; there is no place where you belong. It was
as if the world were going about its business, and Mo were watching from a point somehow removed from
it, on the outside of the bubble.
Mother‘s voice usually made itself heard in the small hours of the morning, when Mo was too
tired to crowd out the thoughts with logic or activity. She had to listen, to accept each word like a
hammerblow. Sometimes the shock and pain of it was so great that she could do nothing except curl up
and whimper until she slept again.
She had never had a family, except for Desmond and Ben. There had been an alcoholic father at
one time, who had raged and stank and died while Mo was young, and a mother who was a perennial
adolescent, regaling Mo with lurid stories about her romances with a string of married men and then,
inevitably, lapsing into episodes of such intense inertia that Mo had been sent to live with anyone who was
willing to take her: Kind neighbors who were told that Mo needed a place to stay for a weekend, and finally
sent her home after several months of unanswered phone calls, women who assented to the pleas of Mo‘s
mother out of a sense of charitable duty, trotting Mo out to their luncheon friends on Saturday afternoons,
and then having her clean the house during the week.
―Work is good for you,‖ one of Mo‘s last keepers admonished. ―After all, you don‘t want to grow
up like your mother, do you?‖
She had not answered. If the truth were told, Mo had expected absolutely to grow up like her
mother, a worn-out helium balloon come to rest in the dusty corner of some urine-soaked alleyway. She
had been beautiful at one time. Men had wanted her. Not for much—a casual tussle after she got off her
job at the restaurant at midnight where she worked as a waitress, usually. That had been enough for her,
Mo supposed. But it wasn‘t enough for Mo.
She didn‘t want men. She rejected their sweatiness, their arrogance, their need to always be right,
their overweening desire to control everything around them, their competitiveness, their childlike
hedonism. Mo had eschewed her Junior Prom, spending the evening writing an essay to accompany her
application to Brown University. And she had skipped her Senior Prom, using the time to write letters to
families in Providence who might be willing to provide her with room and board in exchange for childcare
services. She spent the day of her high school graduation packing.
She did this because she knew that, at heart, she was just like her mother, desperate to please,
trying not to need to belong. That was what had killed whatever human spark her mother may have once
possessed. Mo kept hers hidden, invulnerable. She had been lonely all her life, but she was not about to let
anyone know it.
Mo graduated with honors from Brown, spent a year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne until her
money ran out, then worked at a string of jobs in New York before settling in as a junior editor at Random
House.
There were men along the way, of course. Silly young men, looking to rack up as many conquests
as possible, tortured spoiled artists who insisted on constant admiration, charming older men who spoke
well and tried to hide the fact that they were bankrupt, unemployable, and desperate. Mo could not
remember who had taken her virginity. It hadn‘t mattered, really. He had doubtless been like all the others,
light, shallow, talking about his latest ski vacation or most recent promotion. He had probably worn too
much aftershave and had some embarrassing secret, like smelly feet or a penchant for belching, that they‘d
never discussed.
Mo went out with these men in the hope that dating would make her feel normal, so that she
would have something to talk about with other women, who discussed their most intimate encounters
between proofreading pages or while getting dressed after a noon gym class. So that she would not be
consumed by the loneliness that stalked her like a beast of the city. She slept with them and then smiled as
she said goodbye. The men sometimes wanted second dates, but Mo rarely granted them. Enough was
enough. They were easily replaceable, as she knew she was. As her mother had been. Nothing special.
And then there was Desmond.
(Extra Space)
He was both lover and father to her. He was God, too, Zeus, larger than life, monumentally
fallible, dangerous, irresistibly unsuitable. He drank too much, smoked immoderately, never exercised to
achieve his lanky runner‘s body, and was frequently found lying unconscious in any number of
embarrassing places.
That was how Mo had met him, actually: As the most junior of the junior editors at Random
House, it was one of her duties to track down Desmond Owens when his editor, Mo‘s boss, went gunning
for him.
It was not that Desmond was late in meeting his deadlines: quite the opposite. His manuscripts
almost always arrived early, neatly and professionally typed, and short. That was the problem. They were
always short, and not in the manner of the traditional 198-page mysteries of the ‗fifties and ‗sixties—neat,
concise extended novellas with each clue leading to the resolution of a central unsolved crime. Desmond‘s
were, rather, truncated versions of what should have been quite long novels, full of literary short cuts and
general cheating.
After a stunning debut in the seventies with a quirky, funny book about a playboy detective named
Hamish who chanced upon clues which were ultimately interpreted by his brainy, sexy, and free-spirited
upstairs maid, Desmond wrote three more novels, all sequels to the first, all made into big-budget, highly
successful films. He was called the successor to Ian Fleming, and Hamish what Time magazine called ―a
James Bond with Old Money, wicked wit, and a bumbling, well meaning but troublemaking charm.‖
Desmond Owens had written about himself. The scion of a patrician New England family that
traced its ancestry in America to Patrick Henry, and beyond that to the Norman kings of twelfth century
England, Desmond had never felt a need to work, particularly not in the string of east coast newspapers
which were the current business of the ancient Owen tribe. He had gone to Choate, then graduated from
Yale with mediocre grades in a journalism major, followed by a three-year tour of Europe, a hasty marriage
to a French political activist who accepted a large cash settlement from Desmond‘s father in exchange for a
speedy divorce, and several jobs at several papers, all of which Desmond executed adequately when he
deigned to show up.
Unfortunately, these occasions became increasingly rare. In the end, Desmond was left to wile
away his time in the family‘s enormous Central Park West apartment in New York, receiving no
communications from his parents aside from checks signed by his father‘s accountant and an occasional
disgruntled admonishment to get off his lazy ass.
He was thirty-seven when he wrote the first Hamish novel. Its similarity to the Bond books and its
overt, Jacqueline Susann-like sexuality, still titillating and interestingly modern in those days, catapulted it
onto the New York Times bestseller list. The resultant publicity was tailor-made for someone like
Desmond, who had been attending every important social event in the city long before his literary celebrity
and was completely at home in front of cameras.
Also, the press loved him. He was one of the most handsome and eligible bachelors in New York,
a man utterly unrepentant about his dissolute lifestyle, whose assignations with various models, actresses,
and socialites were parleyed by the media into an almost mythical cachet.
When women in Texarkana read about Hamish, they had only to look in the ―Lifestyle‖ section of
their local paper to find the living embodiment of this fictional character: It was Desmond Owens, tall,
blond, rich, charming, and rumored to have a penis the size of Rasputin‘s. When men read him, they saw a
man who was not particularly different from themselves, except for the fact that he was so rich and well
endowed that women flocked to him with unreasonable abandon. They could even fantasize that their own
heifer-like wives were the oversexed upstairs maid who solved every one of his problems, from grisly
murders to ring around the collar, hoping only for a fast romp in bed as reward.
There had been a huge bidding war on the second novel before it had been written or even
conceived. That didn‘t matter, actually, since all the parties involved knew that it was going to be another
Hamish adventure. Random House, as high bidder, offered an outrageous sum of money for a four-book
contract, which was where the difficulty began.
Desmond was quite happy with the way things had turned out. Parties and women were in
constant supply, and even his family made an attempt at a reconciliation of sorts by running a feature on
Desmond in the Sunday edition of its newspapers. Inconveniently, though, he had lost interest in writing
about Hamish or anything else. A book had been something he‘d wanted to try. He‘d tried, he‘d
succeeded wildly, he didn‘t need any more money, and he‘d probably be famous enough to have
somewhere to go on New Year‘s Eve for the rest of his life.
He saw absolutely no reason to exert himself any more than necessary, which meant that he had to
turn in a manuscript by a certain date or be threatened with a lawsuit by his strident (and immensely
unattractive) editor, whose name was Carol Beale. It had taken more than a year for him to concede even
this much. At first he produced nothing at all. Then, when Ms. Beale‘s phone calls and letters began to get
annoying, Desmond visited her at her apartment, determined to seduce her into silence. He would have to
close his eyes and think of the flag, he decided, but he would make the ultimate sacrifice and offer up his
famous reproductive organ in exchange for her silence.
Ms. Beale‘s lover, a woman even more unattractive than Ms. Beale herself, answered the door.
(Extra Space)
This was where Mo came in. For the past three Hamish sequels, it had been the job of whoever
happened to be Ms. Beale‘s assistant at the time – there had been six – to babysit Desmond Owens. That
entailed, first, calling him every morning with the hope of harassing him into working; secondly, visiting
him every afternoon to collect the pages he‘d written, if any, and thirdly, to avoid becoming pregnant by
him.
Two of Mo‘s predecessors had failed the third part of their assignment. All six had ended up
sharing his bed. Three had quit because they claimed that Desmond had ruined their lives, and one had
been fired for hiring a ghostwriter with her own money to avoid annoying Desmond with the necessity of
working.
Mo‘s approach was different. She did not succumb to his sexual advances, accept his lavish gifts,
or accompany him to holidays in Europe. Her technique was altogether at variance with that of the six
trailblazing women who had shown her by their bad example how to conduct herself with this difficult and
obnoxiously attractive man.
What she did was to arrive at his apartmet at six-thirty in the morning with coffee and a notebook,
and tell him what to write. ―This chapter should be about Hamish discovering that Porter knew all along
about the bonds,‖ Mo would say. ―How would that happen?‖
―You tell me,‖ Desmond would answer, grinning winningly as he leaned forward in his Sulka
pajamas (or, on several occasions, a Turkish towel wrapped loosely around his loins).
―Porter would let something slip about the bond market. He‘s said he didn‘t know anything about
investments, so that would raise a flag with Hamish.‖
―But Hamish wouldn‘t let on that he was on to Porter, of course.‖
―Good,‖ Mo said. ―Now go sit down and flesh that out.‖
―Ja vol,‖ Desmond said, saluting smartly as he sat down at his desk. ―Wait a minute. I‘ve got
something.‖
Mo sighed. She had her coat on. It was nearly nine o‘clock. Her responsibilities to Desmond
Owens didn‘t excuse her from clocking in on time at work. ―Desmond,‖ she pleaded.
―Do you write?‖ His expression was cheerfully expectant. Mo rolled her eyes. He popped up from
his brief and obviously unpleasant working posture, patted her distractedly on her head, and veered toward
the bar, where he tossed two olives into a glass with practiced expertise. ―It occurs to me that if you‘re in
the publishing business, you must write. You all do.‖
―Do we,‖ she said flatly.
―Now, I‘m not being condescending, so you can take that New York edge out of your voice,
Mary.‖
―Mari,‖ she corrected, using a broad A.
―Mari,‖ he repeated, his face breaking into a sudden, angelic smile. ―How lovely. The goddess of
the sea.‖ He held up his glass. ―Martini?‖
―I have to go.‖
―Hear me out, hear me out.‖
―Why? You‘re drinking at nine in the morning, with no intention whatever of writing the novel my
company is paying you a half million dollars for. And since you couldn‘t get me to sleep with you, you‘ve
had to come up with another way to use me to buy you more time.‖
―But you do write.‖ He was still smiling. Mo‘s face blazed. ―You don‘t even have to answer,
Mari. I know you do. What‘s the problem? Can‘t finish?‖
She closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. ―The problem is that I indulge in an inconvenient
activity called a job, which I probably will no longer have after your deadline has come and gone,‖ she
said. ―At that point, there will be no problem at all, except for inconsequential matters like starvation and
homelessness, so you can stop worrying about me, Mr. Owens.‖
―Ah. You‘ve gone naked before me.‖
―I‘m not going to write your book for you.‖
―I didn‘t ask you to,‖ Desmond said loftily. He poured vodka into his glass and swirled it around.
―Anyway, you probably write little romance things or cozy mysteries featuring pets.‖
She glared at him through tight little slits.
He laughed. ―All right. Poetry, then. Idealistic, heartbreaking, unsalable blank verse.‖
She reached for the doorknob.
He held his hand over hers. ―Whatever it is, let me read it.‖
―What?‖
―Even if it‘s terrible.‖
―You‘re in my way, Mr. Owens.‖
―Please. I just want to read something you‘ve written.‖
―For God‘s sake, why?‖
―Because I want to know who you are.‖ Gently he pulled her hand off the doorknob and held it.
Mo pulled it away. ―You don‘t need to know who I am.‖
―Yes, I do. I like the way you think. Now I want to know how you feel.‖
―So that I‘ll write your book for you.‖
―I‘m sure you‘re not good enough to do that.‖
Their eyes held for a moment. ―I‘m sure you‘re right,‖ she said at last, and walked out.
(Extra Space)
The percolator gave off its final wheezing burble, and Mo poured herself a cup with shaking
hands.
She had written the book, of course; Desmond always got what he wanted. And several after that,
accepting as her reward a series of effusive acknowledgments in the front of the novels, as well as enough
money to stop working for Random House altogether to ―collaborate‖ on books with her name on the title
page. Just beneath Desmond‘s, in smaller type. In the years to come, after they married, Desmond would
make a point of publicly thanking Mo so excessively for her enhancement of his life that everyone who
came within the Owens‘ circle, from their publisher to their readers, assumed that Desmond was so smitten
with his pretty young bride that he generously—if falsely—credited her with his own work.
So clever, she thought. She spilled coffee on her desk. Suddenly enraged, she swept everything to
the floor, threw her cup into the sink, breaking it, then went back to bed.
(Extra Space)
Why had he done that? Everyone assumed that Desmond had been the prime mover in their
partnership. Mo could live with that. She had never enjoyed the glamorous end of the book business. She
had been perfectly happy to write the books and give Desmond the credit for them. But why had he made
it seem that she had done nothing but inspire him? Why had he taken everything she had done and claimed
it for himself?
―Boo hoo,‖ Araiama said behind Mo. ―Honestly, don‘t you ever get tired of feeling sorry for
yourself?‖
―I guess not,‖ Mo said. ―What else have I got to do, after all? I don‘t write anymore.‖
―Whose fault is that?‖
Mo picked up a magazine and threw it across the room. ―Yours, goddamit!‖ she shouted. ―You‘re
supposed to be giving me the story.‖
―Incorrect, I‘m afraid. You are supposed to be giving me something.‖
―The shrine?‖
Araiama was silent.
―But then, you don‘t really exist,‖ Mo said. ―You‘re just the embodiment – and it‘s an imaginary
embodiment, at that – of my own guilt and insecurity.‖
―Blah, blah.‖
―Look,‖ Mo said, trying to calm herself, ―I accept that you‘re not real, okay? All my life I‘ve had
trouble separating what‘s real from what‘s not. A lot of the time I don‘t know whether I said something,
wrote it, dreamed it, heard it, read it, or saw it. The only one I really worry about is the reading. I mean, if
someone else wrote it… Oh, for crying out loud. What I‘m getting at is that somehow my subconscious has
me believing that if I don‘t do what you want, you won‘t tell me the rest of your story.‖
Araiama shrugged.
―So what do I need to do?‖ Mo asked, defeated.
―You know perfectly well.‖
Mo turned her back on the woman – or the image, hallucination, specter, whatever Araiama was –
and walked to her desk. Of course she didn‘t have to erect a shrine in order to finish her book. She just had
to sit her ass down at the computer and type one word after another.
Recap: she wrote, trying to pull the forgotten threads of the story together as a reminder to herself.
After the final destruction of Araiama’s tribe, the High Priestess wandered the countryside, taking
shelter where she could, sometimes offering stories of her dead tribe in exchange for a meal. More often
than not, though, the people whose hospitality she begged regarded her with suspicion, sometimes
threatening her with harm. On more than one occasion they formed a wall against her. Then, standing
protectively in front of their children, they pelted her retreating figure with stones.
After that, the text blossomed beneath her fingers.
The three phases of a woman’s life – maiden, mother, and crone – are like a journey into the
dark woods. The maiden, a child, fears nothing because she is holding the hands of her father and
mother: These are her intuition.
But when Maiden becomes Mother, her intuition is replaced by reason. Reason is less
trustworthy than intuition, but more provable. It is like a partnership with a mate, rather than blind
reliance on a parent. She walks arm in arm with her reason; her thoughts justify themselves to her. In the
dark woods, the Mother uses her good sense, not her intuition, to avoid danger.
But sometimes it is not enough to escape, to evade to flee from the demons of the wood. As
Crone, the woman has both intuition and reason, but requires neither. She walks into the woods on
legs wobbly with age, knowing two things: That she will encounter the demons that lie within, and that
when she does, she will not run from them.
Her weapons are acceptance and choice. She accepts the danger surrounding her, yet
chooses to traverse the woods rather than hide in them. But her acceptance, she acknowledges that all
things, including her mortal self, must die. By choosing to risk her life, she finds out what she needs to
know.
The result, the combination of acceptance and choice, is power. She has aligned her will with
that of the great forces of the universe, and has grown greater herself as a result. With this power, the
Crone meets the demons of her soul and vanquishes them.
Mo lifted her hands off the keyboard as if they had been burned. ―What are you doing?‖ she
whispered incredulously. ―Hello, this is a novel, remember?‖ With a sigh of disgust, she highlighted
everything she had just written, preparing to delete it, but one phrase caught her eye.
She has aligned her will with that of the great forces of the universe…
―Okay,‖ she said. She saved the page. She could delete it later.
Mo ran her hand along the screen of her computer. Her fingers crackled with static, then came
away blackened with dust.
Well, of course whatever she wrote now wouldn‘t make sense. She‘d been gone from the story too
long. She‘d lost her train of thought.
On the other hand, it hadn‘t all been her fault, she told herself defensively. She didn‘t like the
room. Didn‘t like the whole house, the damp, the heat, the bugs, the ugly vista of trailers rusting like
decaying carcasses, the smell of garbage and grease and car exhaust. Most of all, though, she no longer
liked the book she was writing.
It had been an experiment, a bad idea that she‘d allowed to go too far. The character of Araiama
had been too close to her. Oh, she‘d been concealed quite properly in the way writers hide real people
beneath descriptions that are designed to change them just enough to prevent libel suits. Mo had made
Araiama old and tall and commanding; no one would think to relate her to her creator. But the disguise had
not been great enough to hide Araiama from Mo herself. She had lost everyone who had loved her, just as
Mo had. And Araiama, priestess of nothing, had wandered the earth purposelessly, telling her stories in
exchange for a meal and a place to spend the night. But she had never belonged with the people who heard
her stories. She had never found her tribe during the remainder of her long, sad life or any of the others. A
thousand restless lives, a thousand disenfranchised bodies wandering alone, helpless, powerless, pointless.
All her lives had been for no purpose, ignored by all the gods, unnoticed and insignificant.
Was that true?
The problem with being a writer was that she could convince herself of practically anything. The
hardest thing of all was being able to see the truth through all the lies that she and everyone else routinely
presented as truth. It was not just the difference between what was real and what was imaginary, but also
between what was real and what was desired, or what was real and what was offered as real. There were
real lies, and lies that people believed to be true. There were self-deprecating lies, and self-aggrandizing
lies, lies of persuasion and lies of drama. Lies for all purposes, and so little truth.
Tentatively Mo reached her hand out toward the computer. She did not like the room, but that was
not why she feared her own work. It was Araiama. Somewhere in that jungle of words, Araiama lived, and
her story, once told, would explain exactly what lay ahead for Mo herself.
Mo blew her nose, laughed at her own fear. She did not want to hear what Araiama had to say.
She examined her pajamas. They were striped, ugly. When she‘d been married, she‘d worn gowns made of
silk. Had that been so long ago? Somehow, somewhere between Cedarbrook and the trailer park, she had
grown careless and ugly and uncomfortable in her skin.
It had happened all at once. A cosmetics clerk in Troutman‘s department store in Chattanooga had
tried to lure her into buying a product for ―mature‖ skin. Mo had walked away in the middle of the
saleswoman‘s pitch and gone directly home, where she‘d placed all her belts, high heeled shoes, and any
garment cut below neck level into a box and driven it to Goodwill. Then she‘d cut her hair into a Chinese
bob, stopped wearing makeup, and turned into the sexless being she now was.
(Extra Space)
She brought up the text of her novel on the computer screen. Page 214, not even halfway though.
Writer‘s block always occurred in the middle of the first draft, after the energetic beginning and the well
thought-out development section, into the labyrinth of plot crises and climax that is almost impossible to
know going in. By page 214, the characters and their decisions have taken on their own momentum. The
outline has become a map on which the place where the author is writing is marked only ―Territory.‖
How long had it been since she‘d written last? Every missed day made it harder to pick up the
plot threads. At the writers‘ conferences where she‘d been asked to speak so often, Mo had always taught
that is was better to write ten minutes a day than ten hours every three weeks. She should have followed
her own advice. She should have written quickly, with detachment. She should never have allowed one of
her characters to frighten her so badly. Araiama had been keeping her from this book, not because she had
refused to tell Mo the rest of her story, as she had threatened, but because she was the embodiment of what
Mo thought about herself.
―Of course that‘s it,‖ Mo muttered, scrolling impatiently toward the end.
Then I won’t tell you what comes next. Those exact words were in the text.
Mo laughed. She had written that herself, she realized, in order to scare herself. ―I told you, that‘s
not going to work,‖ she said firmly. ―You are my character, and you are not telling this story, because I am.
I am in charge here, and I am not insane, repeat not—
Retrieve my shrine.
With a small cry, Mo turned the computer off. It flashed—improper shutdown—then buzzed and
fell silent.
Mo sat in the same position for some time, her hand still outstretched toward the power button, her
striped pajamas trembling with the fear that jolted though her body.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Charlie
Charlie Nolan found her, weeping and red-eyed, a few hours later. She was still wearing her
pajamas, along with the robe she threw on when she spotted Charlie knocking on the glass doors.
Five o‘clock, she thought, seeing the clock on her desk. In the darkened computer screen she
caught sight of her crazy bed-hair. Quickly she ran her fingers through it, ashamed even to see herself.
―Oh, hell,‖ she muttered. Why couldn‘t these people just leave her alone? She hadn‘t signed on to
be Queen of the Trailer Park. ―Is this important?‖ she asked curtly.
―Uh...‖ Charlie thought about it, then grinned. ―Yeah, I think so.‖ When Mo opened the door, he
thrust a square plastic container at her. ―My mom sent over some bread pudding. We haven‘t seen you for a
while.‖
He looked like an overgrown toddler, his long hair splashing around his shoulders. Mo stared at
him uncomprehendingly for a moment before remembering to take it. ―Oh,‖ she said. ―I‘ve been busy.‖
―Yeah, looks that way,‖ he said, raising his eyebrows at her pajamas.
Mo looked down at the container in her hands, then back up at Charlie. ―How... how long has it
been?‖ she asked quietly. Since I’ve been away from this planet.
―Oh, a couple of weeks,‖ he said. ―Probably just missed you.‖ He made a gesture with his two
index fingers shooting past each other. ―Hey, remember that poem I was telling you about? The one I
wrote—‖
Weeks? Had she been holed up inside this moldering cabin for two weeks without knowing it?
Had she eaten? She couldn‘t remember. She hadn‘t worked; she knew that much. Mo hadn‘t gone near
that... that machine until this morning. This morning, when…
―Hey.‖ Charlie was patting the pockets of his jeans and looking around. ―Ah, there you go.‖ He
took a tissue from a box near Mo‘s computer and tried to dab her eyes with it.
Mo, who had not realized that she had begun to cry again, backed away in alarm. The container
she was holding dropped from her hands and hit the floor, where it crashed open, spraying pudding at their
feet. She could only stare at it, frozen.
―I‘m sorry,‖ Charlie said. He held the tissue out to her. ―I didn‘t mean to poke at your face.‖
When Mo did not move from her spot, he put his arm around her. ―You know, maybe you‘d better sit
down.‖
He led her to the sofa. Mo followed stiffly, like a wooden doll, thinking even as she allowed him
to move her that her shame was nearly overwhelming. This young man, this, this fan, was seeing her at her
weakest, most terrible moment. Soon he would walk away as if he were leaving a leper. No, it was worse
than that. Mo was worse than a leper. She was crazy, wildly, floridly crazy, more crazy than Elsie ever was.
Elsie had been driven to insanity by grief, and cured by cooking. What would cure Mo of a ghost
whom she knew was herself?
―I‘ll just clean this up,‖ Charlie said.
―No.‖ Mo felt as if someone were speaking to her from behind a door. Her body and face were a
barricade, and she herself behind it, lively, moving, shouting though the slot between those wooden lips.
What she wanted to say, wanted to shout at the top of her lungs, was please help me! But she
could never say that. Not to this stranger. Not to anyone.
Except for Desmond. There was a time when she would have told Desmond exactly what was
going on inside her mind, even as it imploded. She would have wanted him to understand.
And how would he have responded to her madness? He would have made light of it, of course,
made some witty remark about how he‘d like to meet the dancing woman behind the barricade, because the
barricade itself was becoming damned boring. There would have been a tinge of annoyance about him,
even though he‘d be smiling. And all the while he‘d be dressing, trying on this shirt and that, getting ready
to flee.
―Please don‘t bother,‖ Mo said. ―I‘m terribly sorry. I‘m sure the …‖ She couldn‘t remember the
dish that Charlie had brought. ―I‘m sure it was delicious.‖
Charlie laughed. ―Trouble with the book?‖
An inane conclusion, not even a plausible fiction. ―Yes,‖ she said, grasping at the only straw
offered. ―That‘s it.‖ Give him an excuse to leave.
Who would be the first person he would tell, Mo wondered. The first to share the joke about how
the trailer park landlady was flipping out. They had all laughed at Elsie and her vampire buffet of horrible
food which she had cooked to lessen her grief. They had rolled their eyes at the inconvenience of Elsie‘s
bothersome suicide attempt. How phony that had been, how manipulative. And when Henya had gone to
Elsie to help—when she‘d taken the bait—they had laughed at her, too.
―Mo, I know you don‘t know me that well, but...‖
She looked over at him, squinting. Her head was pounding. She wanted Charlie to leave.
―What?‖
―Tell me what‘s bothering you.‖
―Why?‖ She sounded shrill. Her voice was a weapon, a siren, designed to drive him away. ―Why
should I?‖
―Because I‘m the one who‘s here.‖
That was not what he was supposed to say, Mo thought, outraged. A person like Charlie Nolan
was too much of a proletariat to even think of a sentence like that. He should have said something like
maybe you need to rest, or Do you want a drink? or even Come here, while holding out his arms in sexual
pity. But not that she should talk to him because he was the only one available, because that was the
absolute truth. There was no time to seek out an appropriate ear, to call a therapist or pop a xanax. In
another five minutes, she knew, Mo Owens would apologize and then start screaming and never stop, just
scream for all she was worth while she walked through the plate glass doors and set the cabin on fire.
―I‘m writing about this character,‖ Mo said. ―A priestess from ancient times.‖
Charlie nodded. He was the one who was there.
―She‘s... I know this is going to sound crazy...‖ Tears sprang to her eyes again, without cause or
warning. Quickly she wiped them on the sleeves of her robe. ―She‘s talking to me. The character, that is.
It‘s as if she‘s actually, really come to life.‖
―What‘s she want?‖ Charlie asked.
Again, the wrong response.
―Oh, something from the lake. That doesn‘t matter, anyway. The point is, this fictional character,
this being who doesn‘t even exist, keeps showing up, and I know I‘m imagining it all, but...‖ She buried her
face in her hands, burning with shame. ―God, this sounds even worse than I thought it would.‖
―From the lake?‖ Charlie asked.
―Yes, but... Oh, it doesn‘t matter what she wants.‖ Mo was beginning to prickle with irritation.
―The problem is that I‘m talking to something that I made up. Don‘t you see? It‘s not the thing, whatever
she wants.‖
―Maybe it is,‖ Charlie said. ―What is it?‖
Mo squeezed her eyes shut. She was sorry, intensely, humiliatingly sorry that she‘d ever decided
to participate in this conversation. She sighed. ―She calls it a shrine. That is, I call it a shrine, because it‘s
all in my imagination. That‘s what I‘m trying to tell you. Jesus.‖ She stood up, ran her hands through her
hair. ―How could you understand? Please, Charlie, I know you mean well, but—‖
―All I asked is what the thing was that this lady wants.‖
―She isn‘t even real!‖ Mo was screaming.
―So what!‖ Charlie shouted back.
Mo blinked. They stared at one another in silence for a long time.
―Look, I‘m no psychiatrist, okay? But if you‘ve got this vision or ghost or dream or whatever
telling you to get something, maybe instead of going nuts— and by the way, that‘s what you‘re doing—
maybe instead you should just try to get what she wants. That‘s all I‘m saying.‖
Mo sucked in air. She paced the room, rubbing her hand over her head, hearing her hair crackle as
it stood on end.
―What‘s a shrine?‖ Charlie asked. ―Like, what does it look like?‖
She stared at him again, then slowly took a sheet of paper and a pencil from her desk and brought
it to him. ―It looks like this,‖ she said, drawing a Torii arch. ―At least that‘s how I imagine it.‖
He held the drawing at arm‘s length. ―Hey, there can‘t be too many things at the bottom of the
lake that look like that.‖
―Oh, it would be long gone by now. That‘s what makes this all so stupid. Because not only did I
make all this up, but even if it did exist, which it didn‘t—‖
―Why would it be gone?‖
―Because it was made of wood,‖ Mo said, exasperated.
Charlie shrugged. ―Maybe it wasn‘t.‖
―Oh, for Christ‘s sake,‖ Mo snapped. I made it up. I should know what it was made of.‖
―Okay, okay.‖ He held out his hands placatingly. ―I was just thinking that maybe part of it‘s still
around. Like a hinge or something. You never know.‖
Mo sat back, finally able to see the humor in the situation. ―This really is too weird,‖ she said with
a soft laugh.
―Worth a try, though,‖ Charlie said. Hey, if it‘ll make the old girl happy, you know?‖
Mo smiled. ―Maybe so. Thanks.‖ She patted his knee. ―You can go now. The old girl‘s all right.‖
―What about the lake?‖
I‘ll take a look. That way the next time Araiama comes to haunt me I can at least tell her I tried.‖
―I‘ll look for you.‖
Mo laughed. ―That‘s okay, Charlie. This is a one-person delusion.‖
―I think there might be something there.‖
She closed her eyes in exasperation. ―Haven‘t you heard anything I‘ve said?‖
―Yes, I have. That‘s why I think maybe it‘s not all in your head.‖
―But—‖
―People have visions about real things all the time. Where bodies are buried, where there‘s
underground water, stuff like that. Just because it came from your mind doesn‘t mean it totally doesn‘t
exist. Dreams can tell the truth.‖
―This isn‘t a dream, Charlie. It‘s just what happens to writers when they don‘t have enough of a
life outside their books. Just plain old insanity, I‘m afraid.‖
―Maybe.‖ He shrugged. ―Maybe not. I‘m going to look.‖
Mo sighed. ―Fine. Be my guest. I don‘t like water, anyway.‖
Chapter Twenty Nine
Bebe
Bebe lent Charlie Cynthia‘s snorkel and mask. He said he was going to look for something in the
lake.
Or not. Bebe didn‘t care. Everyone seemed to be speaking a foreign language around her. She
would watch people move their mouths around and produce sounds, but the sounds had no meaning for her.
Just voices making noises.
After she watched Cynthia drive away with Andras, Bebe had punted one of Cynthia‘s stupid pots
into the mother lode. ―Strike!‖ she rasped as they smashed and flew in all directions with a satisfying crash.
Then she went into the freezer, opened a Sara Lee cheesecake, and ate the whole stiff, tonguenumbing thing while standing over the sink.
Since then, Bebe had called off work six times in eight working days. She spent those days in bed,
engorged, bloated, listening to the hum of the world around her.
When had Cynthia become so important to her? she asked herself. Bebe had never really taken
Cynthia very seriously. Well, how could she, really? Cynthia was, at heart, a fool.
No. Not at heart. A fool on the surface, surely, scattered by indecision, driven by insecurity to
foolish acts that she herself took far too seriously. But the center of Cynthia‘s being did not beat with the
heart of a fool.
(Extra Space)
They had met on Venice Beach. This was nearly a year after Sylvana—the so-called ―Contessa‖
who had managed to spirit away all of Bebe‘s money during the so-called ―honeymoon‖ which had been so
carefully documented by the press.
Sylvana wasn‘t a countess, of course. She wasn‘t even a lesbian, as it turned out, although that
revelation came much later. In the beginning, when Sylvana was courting Bebe with the ardor of a Spanish
courtesan, she had been—or seemed, in her magnificent, female way, so butch. So arrogantly desirable, so
blatantly sexual, she had swept into the Lighthouse – the hot club of the moment – like a tornado, leaving a
wake of whispers in a trail behind her. Compared with the dull-eyed heroin addict models whose look was
―in‖ during those strange days of the late 80‘s, Sylvana shone like a jewel among sequins.
She was not a model, although she could have been. The first time Bebe saw her, she was wearing
a high-slitted skirt of black satin that showed off her long, athletic legs. Above the skirt was a silver
bandeau made of something that resembled chain mail. Black hair knotted into a complicated chignon at
the base of her neck. Mick Jagger lips painted blood red. Five inch heels. And eyes that took in the room,
the scene, the whole world at a glance and knew instinctively how to be the center of attention without
doing or saying anything.
Gia, who was the top face at the time, wanted Sylvana. That was obvious; the air in the club was
electric with sexual tension. As the famous model circled Sylvana like a panther, the crowd actually parted
around them to observe the seduction danced to the rhythm of Trance music. But Sylvana had only smiled
at Gia with the superficial girlfriend smile that straight women used to ward off advances by their gay
sisters.
Gia caught it instantly. Her eyes narrowed as if she wanted to spit at Sylvana before melting back
into the crowd.
At another time, perhaps, Sylvana might have accepted Gia‘s unspoken offer. The two of them
would have spent a week in fierce passion, and then fought like dragons, drawing blood until one of them
had the sense to back away. But not that night. On that night at the Lighthouse, when the air was humid
with sweat and bitter with the scent of cocaine, Sylvana had already chosen Beryl Butler for her evening‘s
amusement.
With her bright cornflower-blue gaze and mane of golden curls, Bebe was a striking contrast to
Sylvana‘s sleek black hair and smoky eyes. Sylvana was small-boned, like an adder, while Bebe was a big,
friendly cowgirl whose moment in the sun was already becoming eclipsed by the vampire-pale girls who
followed in Gia‘s self-destructive footsteps.
That was what Sylvana gave her, truly, the only thing of value she had ever given Bebe: This
sense of staving off the end of the carousel ride, the unfair inevitability of having to relinquish her time in
the spotlight, even though Bebe was still beautiful, still unspoiled by time. Her ―look,‖ meaning the
externalized expression of who Beryl Butler was, had become passe in less than three Paris seasons.
Psychologically, this was not a hardship for Bebe. She had never considered herself to be
beautiful, nor found any real value in physical beauty. If anything, her turn at modeling had been a huge
joke aimed at her family, who regarded her choice of career as both shocking and disappointing.
Still, it was hard to see it end. The invitations, the flashbulbs, the pleas of papparazzi to look their
way, the constant images of herself looking back at her from rows of magazine covers. The slacking off of
all this attention had been very slight, and only among the very top echelon of the fashion industry. People
in middle America were just beginning to know Beryl Butler‘s name. But in the center of things, at the
Lighthouse, at the Milan and Tokyo shows, in the offices of Paris Vogue, her ―cachet Americain‖ was no
longer the hot item it once was.
Her publicist suggested a series of staged photo opportunities—the sort of thing routinely given to
starlets. Posing in a low-cut gown, rump playfully displayed, at the opening of some Broadway show. It
was common practice, the publicist said, bored but prepared to earn his commission money. ―It‘s not all a
free ride, you know.‖
Bebe had left his office without a word.
And then there was Sylvana, whom the press mistakenly exposed as Eurotrash (she was actually
Peruvian), and the horrible wake she left behind her. There was the three-year tour through Europe,
financed by Bebe‘s investments. Then came the blowup between the two women in India—that is, the last
blowup, since Bebe won that argument by entering a Hindu temple to which she donated her last half
million dollars. Sylvana was back in New York within a day. Six months later, her name was linked with a
famous Hollywood actor known for starring in ―man‘s man‖ action films.
Bebe left the temple after a year. She asked the guru to lend her a thousand dollars for plane fare
back to the States. She emerged in Venice Beach, California, totally forgotten by the public and nearly
stone broke. She was 33 years old – at the end of her life, as far as she was concerned.
(Extra Space)
Cynthia insisted that they‘d met during Bebe‘s Venice Beach days, but Bebe didn‘t remember. It
was, in fact, hard to recollect when Cynthia had begun to make any impact on her life at all. It was as if
Cynthia had always been around, like a feeble nanny or a lame dog.
Those days had been a blur of wasted hours hiding in darkened rooms, of nights spent reeling on
Ecstasy, then called x and not e, in clubs. Of days snorting coke, jack and smack. She danced, drank
prodigiously, slept with sailors and students and bull dykes, and occasionally with celebrities who
recognized her and tried to pretend that she still resembled the leggy model who had once set the fashion
world on fire.
Through these times, someone had taken her home—or somewhere—and had made bad coffee for
her and cleaned up Bebe‘s vomit and taken out the trash and come up with the rent. Bebe herself never
quite knew who that was, except that the woman had a voice like a Myna bird, screeching and ridiculously
high pitched, with a flat Midwestern affectation.
Bebe hadn‘t heard the words then, either, just the sound of Cynthia‘s voice. That had taken place
over... how many years? Four? Five? Enough. And not a single sober day among them.
(Extra Space)
The first time Bebe actually saw Cynthia, she was standing on a scale in a bathroom, feeling the
fur on her teeth with her tongue.
―What‘s that say?‖ she asked groggily, gesturing with her chin at the scale.
―Eighty five pounds,‖ Cynthia said.
Bebe squinted. ―Got to be a mistake,‖ she said. She could not have lost forty pounds since...
since.... She looked around. Nothing looked familiar, nothing at all. ―Who are you?‖ she asked.
Cynthia burst into tears.
Bebe‘s indifference meant little in the long run, though. For the pleasure of Bebe‘s company,
Cynthia continued to play her role in their thankless relationship. For six years, Cynthia paid all the
household bills by working as a sales clerk, a bank teller, a supermarket checker, a cashier in a convenience
store, a receptionist in a doctor‘s office, a scheduler in a garage, a dispatcher for a taxi company, a hostess
in a vegan restaurant, a florist‘s assistant, and a telephone solicitor. Cynthia never kept a job for long: the
combination of her strident voice, obnoxious personality, and overwhelming incompetence was too much
for most employers. But she always found work, and managed to support Bebe through what Cynthia
thought of as the ―hard years‖, the years Bebe did not remember at all.
(Extra space)
On the day when Bebe finally sobered up, she picked up the phone and dialed four digits of a
phone number she thought she could remember, but couldn‘t. It took a half hour to find it, written on the
flap of an envelope.
As it rang, Bebe felt a flutter of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. How long had it been? Years,
surely. Six, seven years, maybe more.
At the other end, the phone was ringing in the library of a 23-room Georgian mansion on
Philadelphia‘s Main Line. The room was fragrant with roses, delivered at six every morning so that the
lady of the house could enjoy them over coffee.
A woman‘s voice with a British accent answered. ―Butler residence.‖
―It‘s Beryl Butler,‖ Bebe said. ―Is my mother there?‖
―I beg your pardon?‖
―Are you Amanda Butler‘s secretary?‖ she asked.
―Yes, I am. And your name again?‖
―Beryl. Could you call Mrs. Butler to the phone, please?‖
―I‘m afraid Mrs. Butler isn‘t in at the moment,‖ the secretary said crisply.
Bebe wished with all her heart that the woman were standing in front of her. She could probably
take the bitch down with a single blow.
―How‘s my dad?‖ she threw in, just to be annoying.
―If you‘ll leave your number, miss, I‘ll tell them both that you called.‖
―How long have you been working there?‖ Bebe demanded.
―I beg your pardon,‖ the woman said frostily.
―Probably for years. And no one in all that time has ever mentioned my name, is that right?‖
―That is correct,‖ the woman said. Bebe could hear the unspoken satisfaction in her voice.
―How about the others? Corrine and Davis and Phillip? Do my parents talk about them?‖
There was silence on the other end of the phone. She’s trying to decide whether or not to hang up,
Bebe thought. ―Are they all right? They‘re all still alive, aren‘t they?‖
A brief intake of air. ―Yes, ma‘am. The family are well.‖ Another silence. ―Would you mind
giving me your number, Miss, ah—‖
―Forget it,‖ Bebe said, and hung up.
(Extra Space)
She didn‘t go back to drinking after that. Bebe shot heroin instead.
She no longer cared who the woman who lived with her was, or what she did. Bebe‘s world was a
welter of sickness and oblivion, one following the other, day after day. She‘d tapped all her friends for
money. She‘d stolen from Cynthia. She‘d sold all the treasures she‘d kept in a safety deposit box since she
was twelve years old: Her First Communion pearl necklace, the sapphire brooch her grandmother had left
her when she died, along with the trust fund that had long ago been depleted, a diamond necklace that her
mother had recklessly tossed to her before one of her suicide attempts.
That time had been with pills, Bebe recalled during one of the horrible, lucid sick times.
Nembutal, mainly, although her mother, the famous socialite Isobel Butler, heiress to her own fortune as
well as her husband‘s, had had more than a nodding acquaintance with Seconal, Valium, and Quaaludes
before the final, fateful night when she‘d decided to stop fooling around with the ladylike prescription
drugs and show Mr. Death that he really was the man of her dreams.
She‘d sent Bebe‘s older siblings away for the night. She hadn‘t had to worry about her husband, of
course; he‘d been gone for days, and wasn‘t expected back until his current affair was over. But she‘d
forgotten about Bebe. In her confusion amid a sea of tranquilizers, she hadn‘tremembered that it was the
nanny‘s day off and that her eight-year-old daughter was wandering around the house alone.
Bebe hadn‘t really been wandering, though. The girl had been standing right in her mother‘s
bedroom from the first tentative steps of Isobel‘s suicide ritual, the bright yellow capsules (―yellowjackets,‖
the Lighthouse crowd had called them) lined up on her nightstand, tiny lethal soldiers ready to kill. They
might have done the job on their own, but Isobel had built up a considerable tolerance. The last attempt,
squelched by an episode of vomiting so loud that one of the groundkeepers outside heard it and summoned
help, had taught her to take extra precautions. These came in the form of five brand-new Gillette singlesided razorblades, laid out side by side on the edge of the bathtub.
The bath was alluring, filled with bubbles redolent with the scent of carnations, Malmaison, by
Floris. The bottle had been replaced on the bathroom vanity. Its glass stopper was in place. Isobel made
sure there would be as little mess to clean up afterwards as possible.
She never acknowledged Bebe during her preparations, even though the child, her youngest child,
Isobel‘s baby, stood before her, weeping, throughout the whole process. Silently Isobel swallowed the
yellow capsules one by one, washing each down with Evian water from a cut crystal glass. At the last,
though, Mrs. Butler – the first Mrs. Butler, Bebe distinguished, as there had been a number of others – had
raised her beautiful, sad eyes to meet Bebe‘s.
―Goodbye, my darling,‖ she had said before floating in a chiffon peignoir into the bathroom with
its lush, spicy scent.
Bebe had started to scream as soon as the door closed, but the nearest servants were three floors
below. And besides, Isobel had known what she was doing by then. The cuts on her arms had been made
vertically, following the translucent blue veins under her skin. The peignoir had been hung on a satin
hangar with a lavender sachet hanging over the hook. Isobel Butler‘s hair had been pulled into a neat
chignon, suitable for burial. Her makeup had been applied perfectly. The bubbles in the tub were pink,
thoughtfully concealing the wreckage beneath.
The room smelled like carnations for days afterward.
Chapter Thirty
Cynthia
When it became clear to Cynthia that Bebe was not going to abandon her addiction willingly, she
gave her notice at her current job, closed out her bank account, bought ten fifths of Old Granddad, filled the
gas tank in Bebe‘s Jaguar – it was a wreck, but still better than Cynthia‘s own car – loaded the truck with
all of their possessions that fit, and threw Bebe into the back seat.
―What‘re you doing?‖ Bebe slurred.
―Getting you away from here.‖
―Can‘t. Elmo‘s coming tonight. I think it‘s tonight.‖
―Forget Elmo, Bebe,‖ Cynthia said. Elmo was Bebe‘s dealer. Her part-time lover. Her killer.
Cynthia had put up with Elmo, the way she‘d put up with everything else, because she loved Bebe. But she
was damned if she ws ever going to let the little shit in the door again.
―He‘s bringing some Black Pearl. Gonna do some back-to-back.‖
―I said forget it.‖
―Hey, who do you think you are?‖ Bebe pushed herself to a sitting position in the back seat, but
her wobbly arms gave way. She crashed back onto the seat, her dirty hair falling across her face. Her arms
were lined with track marks. Her lips were blistered.
―I‘m the person who loves you,‖ Cynthia said.
―Fuck you.‖
―Yeah, all right.‖
She‘d driven all night until they were well into New Mexico, where they‘d stopped at a cheap
motel. Bebe drank one of the fifths while Cynthia ate a bag of Fritos from a vending machine. Then
Cynthia drove a slow route through the least populated areas of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas that she
could find. Bebe threw herself onto the highway somewhere just over the Tennesse border. Cynthia stopped
the car, picked her up, and kept going. The back seat was stained with urine and vomit and feces that
Cynthia had cleaned up with paper towels and soda water. The Jag had hit a nail and begun the three-wheel
thump just as they entered Beltsville on Route 33.
―Gimme a drink, goddammit,‖ Bebe roared.
―I can‘t,‖ Cynthia said miserably. She hadn‘t eaten a meal in more than a week, and she‘d hardly
slept at all. ―The whiskey‘s all gone.‖
―Then get some more. Call Elmo.‖
―No.‖
―Get it!‖ Bebe insisted, grabbing Cynthia‘s hair. ―I said get me something so I‘m not sick!‖
Cynthia started to cry. She pulled over and stopped the car and kept on crying.
What the fuck‘s wrong with you?‖ Bebe shouted.
But Cynthia could not answer. She could only keep on crying.
―Hey,‖ Bebe said. ―Stop it. Stop acting stupid.‖
―This was the best I could do,‖ Cynthia said. She leaned her head against the steering wheel. It
honked, scaring them both.
Bebe stared at her. ―Why are you doing this, anyway? Driving me all over the country.‖
―I wanted you to get off drugs,‖ Cynthia said numbly. She turned around to face Bebe in the back
seat. ―You knew that. You weren‘t that stoned that you just didn‘t know anything.‖
―Okay, yeah,‖ Bebe said. ―I knew that‘s what you were doing.‖
―But you need to want it, too.‖
―Yeah.‖
―Do you?‖ Cythia asked tentatively, wiping her nose with a used Ho Ho wrapper. ―Do you?‖
―Asshole. Why do you think I stayed?‖
―I thought you were just out of it.‖
―That‘s how much you know, Cynthia.‖
Cythia‘s head bobbed up. ―You know my name?‖
―What do you think? You‘ve been living off me for six years.‖
―I‘ve done my share.‖
Bebe smiled crookedly. ―I think maybe you‘re the best friend I ever had.‖
―Damned right,‖ Cynthia said. ―Who else would wipe your butt in the back seat of a car?‖
Bebe scrathed her head. ―I think I have lice,‖ she said.
―Great,‖ Cynthia said. ―That‘s just terrific.‖
―Jesus, look!‖ Bebe pointed to a neon sign, half blown out with age: Gen ra Grant’s T mb.
―It‘s a gay bar!‖
―How do you know that?‖
―Federal Army General,‖ Bebe said. ―Mel Brooks.‖
―Huh?‖ Cynthia‘s face remained blank as Bebe tumbled out of the car. ―It‘s after two,‖ she called.
―And Mel Brooks wasn‘t a general.‖ She frowned. ―At least I don‘t think so. Bebe, stop that.‖
But Bebe was already pounding on the door by then. With a sigh, Cynthia got out of the car and
followed her.
(Extra Space)
Cynthia had always followed her, Bebe knew. She had cleaned up Bebe‘s messes, taken her abuse,
sufferered the consequences of whatever horror Bebe had inflicted on them. Cynthia had called Bebe‘s
family that night and begged for money. Cynthia had gotten the job in the dive shop while Bebe had dried
out.
The worst of the heroin addiction had been over by then, but it had taken another year for her to
get off the booze. No bars – that was the only rule Cynthia had imposed. So Bebe had drunk alone until she
could stop.
And then came the food. Bebe could only do things to excess.
And still Cynthia loved her. Nothing Bebe could ever do would make her stop.
That counted for something, Bebe thought.
She went outside, into the woods, to walk in the night, where the pattern of her blue veins was not
quite so interesting, and the scent of carnations not so strong.
(Extra Space)
Thirty-eight miles away, in a 24-dollar a night motel room Cynthia and Andras lay sweating in a
rumpled bed.
―I‘m sorry, babe,‖ Andras said, taking a swig from a bottle of warm beer. ―I guess I‘m just not
used to your pussy.‖
―Oh, shut up.‖ Cynthia threw off the sheet that was covering her and stomped toward the
bathroom.
―Well, you can‘t blame me. I never did it with a lesbian before.‖
She whirled around abruptly. ―I never did it with a moron before!‖ she shrieked.
Andras put up his hands, trying to make peace. ―Okay, okay,‖ he said. ―We just got to find a way
out of this.‖
―There is no way,‖ Cynthia groaned. She fell back against the wall and slid down, as if she had
suddenly lost the ability to stand upright. ―There is no place for me to go now. All those years I spent
looking after Bebe, all for nothing. It‘s all just been a big failure, like everything else in my life. And now
this.‖ She gestured emptily. ―This is where the future finally ends up. In a cheap motel room, having sex
with a man.‖
―Hey, lots of girls wouldn‘t think that was so bad,‖ Andras said. Cynthia sneered.
―Want a beer?‖ Andras offered.
Cynthia buried her head in her arms. Andras turned on the television, flipping through the
channels until he found a rerun of Charlie’s Angels.
―Oh, for God‘s sake,‖ Cynthia hissed.
Andras lowered the volume. ―You know, I been thinking,‖ he said. ―Maybe we should split up.
That is, if it‘s all right with you.‖
Cynthia wailed. ―Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do now that you‘ve taken
me away from everything I know?‖ She sobbed bitterly.
―Oh, man,‖ Andras said, rubbing his nose. ―I can‘t say I know. I could ask around, though, see if
anybody‘s got a job you could apply for.‖
―A job?‖ Her eyes began to well. Her lips trembled. ―I thought we were carpenters, Andras. We
were going to build things. Constructions.‖
Andras shrugged. ―Can‘t really build something unless somebody‘s paying to have you build it,
you know? I mean, this is the real world.‖
Cynthia looked around at the shabby motel room. The sound that issued from her throat was a
high-pitched squeal of utter despair.
―Wanna fuck?‖ Andras offered.
Chapter Thirty One
Ned
As it turned out, Charlie Nolan did find something in the lake. He laid two objects on Mo‘s
kitchen counter with a shrug.
―I don‘t know if that‘s anything or not. There was nothing big.‖
Mo put down the knife she was using to cut vegetables and picked up one of them. It was a slime-covered
stone about the size of a fist, but almost perfectly egg shaped. Fascinated, she moved aside her vegetables
and washed it.
―Interesting design, I thought,‖ Charlie said.
―You mean these rope things?‖ Mo held it up to the light. The egg was striated with diagonal
ridges, as if it were encased in a spiral covering. ―That could just be erosion.‖
Charlie shrugged. ―I just thought it looked interesting. Maybe they‘re coprolites.‖
―What?‖
―Dinosaur turds.‖
―Oh.‖
―Or erosion. You‘re probably right.‖
Mo felt her blood pounding in her head. She realized she‘d been holding her breath. ―Yes,‖ she
said slowly. The stone felt like a living heart in her hand. ―The motion of water can do surprising things.‖
―I guess. Sorry that‘s all I found. I can go out again tomorrow.‖ He stood up. ―I‘d better go.
Got a gig tonight.‖
―Oh? Playing?‖
He shook his head. ―Working sound. I‘ll take what I can get.‖
―I know what you mean,‖ Mo said.
―I doubt that,‖ he said good-naturedly. ―Good luck with your book.‖
For a moment after the door closed behind him, Mo stared at the place where he had been, feeling
the warmth his body had generated, taking in his scent. The rock in her hand throbbed.
Stop it, she told herself, setting down the rock deliberately. Charlie Nolan was seventeen years
younger than she was. He was not interested in her. If she could get past that, she could be more
comfortable around him, she supposed. More motherly, less... less stupid.
Was she infusing a rock with some sort of power just so that she could feel a bond with Charlie?
She flushed with shame. Nothing was more embarrassing than horny middle-aged women. What would
she do next? Check out airport bars for lonely married men?
She felt tears running down the sides of her nose. She never knew anymore when she was crying.
It was part of menopause, she supposed, like hot flashes. The warning signs of impending old age. Or of
spending too much time alone. Or of going mad.
With a sniff, she sat down at her computer and began to type.
(Extra Space)
The shrine was of a simple design, a curved wooden beam set upon two poles and connected by
lengths of leather. Beneath it was the altar, and on the altar stood thirteen identical dolls.
―Pregnant women wrapped in snakes,‖ Araiama said.
Mo looked up abruptly.
―Do you see it?‖ The older woman held the egg-shaped rock in her hand. ―Badly eroded, I‘m
afraid.‖
―There were thirteen of them?‖
Araiama nodded. ―We each had one.‖
―Does the number thirteen have any significance?‖
―Oh, Great Goddess,‖ Araiama muttered. ―Your culture has obliterated everything!‖ She looked
pained as she explained. ―There are thirteen moons in a year. Thirteen is the first prime number after
three, which represents the Triple Goddess. Maiden, Mother, and Crone. And then the thirteen priestesses.
We made up the next circle, the ring to protect the Triple Goddess of All that Is.‖
―Yes?‖ Mo encouraged, writing everything Araiama said. ―Is that the... the outermost level, or is
there—‖
―Then come the cowen, those who believe but do not serve. In my youth, I believed there were
only the three circles. It fit together neatly, the Triple Goddess, the thirteen priestesses, the three circles.
But in time I learned that there were other circles beyond the cowen that I had never dreamed of. Vast
hordes of women who had had the Goddess beaten out of them, women who followed their fathers‘ and
their husbands‘ male war gods. And beyond them, the men themselves, who would not lose their women to
the Goddess, and so sought to destroy all trace of the Great Mother.
―And succeeded,‖ Mo said.
―Perhaps not.‖ Araiama offered the stone to Mo. ―You‘ve gone to considerable trouble to retrieve
this.‖
―Charlie retrieved it,‖ Mo said rather stridently. She took the stone and laid it gingerly on her
desk. ―Besides, I can‘t see anything resembling a pregnant woman with a snake wrapped around her. It
just looks like an ordinary stone.‖
―Does it?‖
Mo picked it up again, squinting, and examined it. ―Well, this part looks as if...‖ She put it down
again. ―Stop it,‖ she said, blushing furiously. ―There is nothing about that thing to indicate that it‘s ever
been carved by human hands.‖
―Picture a full-bodied female figure with a large snake encircling its waist,‖ Araiama insisted.
―No!‖
―I am trying to instruct you—‖
―You‘re browbeating me. Now let me work.‖
Araiama gave her a stony glare. ―As you wish, madam.‖ She disappeared.
Mo could not think of a single word to write next.
(Extra Space)
In the morning, at down, Mo walked to the lake and around it as far as the cliff edge. She could
barely see the trailers from here, obscured as they were by the stand of trees behind them. Only an
occasional flash of metal or paint in the growing light betrayed their presence.
Her own house had virtually melted into the landscape. The dirt road beyond it was not an
imposition on the land, but a part of it. In the distance, only a few big trucks travelled the highway. The
low, rumbling noise they made in their passage sounded like the cries and calls of far-off beasts.
It must have been just like this, Mo thought, squatting down to cool her hands in the shallow
water. Back when Araiama…
On her left, stuck along the cliff edge, she spotted a tiny outcropping of rock, a natural shelf.
Beneath it, as if it were a statue in a grotto, was a rock the size and shape of an egg.
Her heart thudding, Mo waded into the lake to look at it.
The stone was of a different color and texture from the cliff: Granite, probably, she thought,
striated with streaks of red. As she turned the rock in her hand, she suddenly sucked in her breath. At one
place, the striations resembled a snake, complete with eyes and protruding forked tongue. There was no
head that she could discern, and no arms or legs or other features.
―Just a rock,‖ Mo said aloud. But her voice was shaky. And she kept the rock, placing on her
kitchen counter with the others.
(Extra Space)
Mo stood holding the three stone eggs in her hands, trying to discern the shape of snakes around
each one.
―Mo?‖ Ned‘s head appeared in the doorway. ―I‘ve got the utilities money.‖
―Really, Ned. I‘d you to keep that as payment for cutting the grass.‖
―He waved her away. ―No, take it. The grass isn‘t a problem. And we all want to pay. Even Elsie
didn‘t complain.‖ He dropped the money on the counter. ―And we know it doesn‘t mean we can stay.‖
―You know, Ned,‖ Mo began, ―I‘ve been thinking that if you wanted to stay on as groundskeeper
or whatever –‖
―Where‘d these come from?‖ He held up one of the eggs.
―The lake. Charlie found them. Well, three of them. I picked up the other --‖
―I‘ll bet they came from my great-grandmother‘s house.‖
―The house that fell into the lake? Why do you say that?‖
―She used to carve them,‖ he said, smiling. ―Hundreds of them, thousands. My grandfather gave
them to all his children. I still have a few.‖ He shook his head. ―The photographs I saw showed her house
looking like the home of the Easter Bunny. ‖
―But… er, why?‖ Mo asked. ―Why would she carve… eggs?‖
Ned shrugged. ―Who knows? I don‘t think she was all there. The story goes, she swallowed poison
after her husband was killed, and she was never the same afterward.‖
―Was he murdered?‖ Mo asked. ―Your great-grandfather, was it?‖
―Yes. That is, no. It was my great-grandfather, but he died in an accident at the sawmill where he
worked. It‘s still up there somewhere, although it‘s not in operation anymore.‖
―And his wife swallowed…‖
―Castor beans. She cooked castor beans and drank the tea.‖
―Ricin,‖ Mo said. She had used that in a book. ―Very deadly.‖
―Not that deadly, I guess,‖ Ned said. ―It didn‘t work. Still the folks up at the snake church thought
it was a miracle.‖
―Did you say the snake church?‖ Mo asked.
Ned laughed. ―I guess it‘s a weird thing for Northerners to wrap their heads around. Down here in
Tennessee and Kentucky – there may be some other places where it goes on, but this has always been the
main area – there are these weird sects where the members prove their faith by handling poisonous snakes
and swallowing poison.‖
―What?‖
―Yeah, I know. You couldn‘t make this up. Actually, there‘s one of them just up the road, behind
the old shopping center.‖
Mo had seen cars coming up the pot-holed road off route 33 on Wednesday nights and Sunday
mornings. It had crossed her mind that no stores were open in the shell of what had been a shopping center
in the 60‘sand 70‘s, but she had assumed that the cars were going elsewhere. ―I don‘t recall seeing a church
there.‖
―It doesn‘t look much like a church. Just a square cinderblock building with a flat roof. Since
snake handling‘s illegal, those churches don‘t like to draw a lot of attention to themselves. Most of them
aren‘t even in public buildings. They hold services in someone‘s house, or they keep moving around from
place to place. The law doesn‘t do much of anything to them here, though.‖
―Why not?‖
Ned rubbed his fingers together. ―The cops here are… Well, don‘t get me started on that. Of
course, every year a few of these holy rollers die of snakebite or poisoning, so there‘s some kind of bogus
investigation, but it never amounts to anything, since nobody ever files charges. Anyway, my great
grandma, Doralee Roberts, was their patron saint for a while.‖
―Till she died of snakebite?‖ Mo asked.
―No. She sort of got booted out of the church, from what I understand. I don‘t know why. I don‘t
even know how she died.‖ He walked over to Mo‘s desk and set down the egg he‘d been holding. ―But I do
know she carved these eggs, and I‘d be surprised if these aren‘t examples of her… Hey, that‘s funny.‖ He
cocked his head.
―What‘s funny?‖
―This drawing.‖ He picked up Mo‘s sketch of the Torii arch. ―There was one of these by Doralee‘s
house, too.‖
Mo stood immobile, her mouth formed into a silent O.
―I‘m not kidding. It wasn‘t exactly like this – there were feathers hanging off one end, and some
leather straps or something with beads over here…‖ He indicated the places on the drawing. The exact
places where Araiama had described the exact ornaments Ned was talking about.
Mo sank into a chair.
―I remember photographs my mother had. There were pictures of the eggs, too. They were inside
the house. But the medicine pole was outside.‖
―Medicine pole?‖
―That‘s what I used to call it,‖ Ned said, blushing. ―I used to pretend that my family were Indians,
and that the medicine pole, or whatever it was, was where they‘d go to pray to the Great Spirit.‖ He
laughed. ―That was pretty exotic for an Italian Catholic.‖
―Why was it there?‖ Mo asked. ―The…er, medicine pole.‖
Ned shook his head. ―No clue. My grandfather Ezekiel died before I was ten years old, and
Doralee, his mother, died when he was a young man. He sold the land on the cliff so that he could go to
college in Nashville.‖
―So the shrine – the medicine pole – fell into the lake when the house did.‖
―No doubt.‖
Retrieve my shrine.
―And you don‘t know why Doralee had it there?‖
―I think it always was there. Cherokees have lived here since God knows when. Even when the
army moved them out in the 1830‘s, a few stayed in the mountains. Most of the people around Beltsville
have at least some Indian blood. That land up on the cliff might have been a sacred spot, for all I know.‖ He
spread his hands. ―Then again, like I said, grandma Doralee didn‘t have all her marbles. And that‘s not just
my family‘s opinion, either. I think she was known around these parts as Crazy Dora.‖ He laughed.
―Crazy, sainted Doralee Roberts, the snake-totin‘, poison drinkin‘ Witch Queen of Appalachia.‖
They both laughed. Then Ned nodded politely and retreated toward the door.
―Ned,‖ Mo asked softly. ―Are there a lot of snakes in this area?‖
―Full of them,‖ Ned said. ―The whole region has a lot of snakes, but they‘re particularly dense
here, I think.‖ He scratched his neck. ―I don‘t suppose Victoria Tanner told you that, either.‖
(Extra Space)
The thing about his great-grandmother, the thing that Ned hadn‘t told Mo Owens, was that
Doralee Roberts was an Ealy. She didn‘t look like one – everyone knew that the Ealys were red-haired,
cross-eyed, and inbred. You could spot an Ealy a mile away, even if he was a newborn baby or a hundredyear-old man.
Doralee was born dark, almost Indian-looking. Where Jonah Roberts found her, no one knew.
Some say she just lived in the woods, like an animal. Others said she was a whore in a whorehouse up on
Belt Mountain, by Ellis‘ still, catering to those who could not afford to be seen at Madame Cindy‘s
establishment in town – preacher‘s kids, outcasts, criminals, Negroes, or any members of the Ealy family.
She kept to herself. Even after she married Jonah, Doralee spent much of her time outdoors and
did not cultivate friends. She kept the whole farm herself with only little Ezekiel‘s help while Jonah worked
at the sawmill and, in the evenings, she carved dolls out of rocks, and set them out for God-knew who –
demons, fairies, whatever she believed in her strange soul.
Even so, she and Jonah attended church every Sunday. Sometimes someone would bring a snake –
they were so plentiful all around the mountain – and it would find its way to Doralee.
It wasn’t natural, the residents of Belt Mountain said, to be so close to snakes. A person was
supposed to overcome the Satanic forces, not cozy up to them. Doralee looked like she could love them up,
if you knew what that meant.
She had no fear, of that everyone was certain. The snakes came, each in a square white box to be
released into the pit where the brave and the faithful would thrust their arms and pull one out, to shrieks and
cheers. But Doralee would just stand there, sometimes humming, her eyes transfixed on some point far out
of the ken of ordinary eyes, and the snakes would crawl up out of the pit, overcoming its steep sides,
causing gasps of amazement among the congregation. They eased themselves out and wrapped themselves
around her arms and legs and torso until she was a living tree of the knowledge of good and evil, wherein
the serpents of Eden found their Mother.
Not natural.
Not natural.
Then, when her husband Jonah died, they accused her of killing him.
Snakes made her do it
Not natural, falling into the blade like that. Even if he was drinking. Cut right in two, heart sawed
in half. She probably drank the blood. Witch.
Witch.
They made her drink the poison. Here, in front of us
In front of God Almighty
at the Wednesday night service.
And no, Doralee didn‘t want to drink it, but then she was feebleminded, and so when they asked
her, ―Are you of Satan, or of the Holy Majesty of the one God?‖ she had answered, ―the… the second one.
That.‖
Her hands trembled. The cup was put into those trembling hands, and she drank. A low hush
spread around the congregation.
She felt sick. Her son, Ezekiel, who was twelve, took her home, where she vomited all day and all
night. When she came back to church on Sunday morning, the preacher shook her hand. The women slid
their eyes toward her. Their husbands held their wives and children closely.
Saint, they said. Hallelujah!
Witch.
That day the snakes all slithered out of the pit and came to her. They hung off her arms like living
bracelets. They wrapped themselves around her neck, licked the skin between her breasts, formed a wide
belt around her belly.
The snakes, her sisters.
If she had wanted to, Doralee might have killed everyone in that church, because the snakes would
have listened to her. Not to her words, because even Doralee knew that snakes were deaf, but they would
have felt it in the beating of her heart. They would have known if she‘d wanted them to kill for her. But
Doralee Roberts had no power, and no malice. She never even entertained the idea of using the snakes to
defend herself against the secret, true evil of her fellowman.
As it was, she scared the living bejeezus out of everyone, although they said nothing against her,
and shouted ―Amen!‖ and ―Praise Be!‖ as often as they could, while making the sign of the Evil Eye with
their fingers behind their backs.
Doralee never attended another service. The snakes had spoken to her, she said, although she
never revealed to the members of the church what they had said. Instead, she brought offerings of food and
milk and carved dolls to the Indian shrine outside her door, the medicine pole that Jonah had built to
replace the one that was falling down.
That one, too, the snakes told her, had been built to replace yet another medicine pole.
This was sacred land, they said, their land, the place of snakes. Home. A medicine pole had been
in this place for so long that the memory of the first one was buried deep inside their very bodies.
Home.
Fifteen years later, while Ezekiel was plowing the potato field up by the old sawmill where his
father had been hewn in half, Doralee died in her sleep.
Or perhaps she died of snakebite. A copperhead was curled beside her body when Ezekiel found
her. When it slithered away, it left behind a small feather, a souvenir from a bird it had eaten, a gift for
Doralee.
Ezekiel had her buried in the churchyard, but three days later, vandals dug up the casket and
deposited it on the porch of Doralee‘s house on the cliff. They also tore down the medicine pole. On the
pine casket was the word witch written in pig‘s blood.
Ezekiel reburied his mother on the cliff, behind the house. By 1998, when the cliff fell into the
lake below, the casket and all that remained inside it had disintegrated and returned to the earth. There had
been a huge rumble and splash, and the lake had churned with mud for five days and stayed brown for
another three months, and beneath the surface the old septic tank had leaked poison into the water for
twelve years. But now, drifting above the calm water, catching the moonlight as it moved, a small bird‘s
feather floated on the wind.
And in the earth around the lake, the snakes slept, their shining bodies remembering everything.
Chapter Thirty Two
Mo
Mo pushed herself away from the keyboard and picked up the stone eggs, feeling their roundness
in her hands. Dolls, she thought. They could have been dolls. Statues. Or eggs.
In the end, who was to say what as real and what was imaginary? If someone painted a picture of
the ocean, and someone else bought the picture thinking it represented the sky, who would be right?
An egg, a doll, a statue, a holy offering. History/Fiction. Interpretation/ Truth.
Imagination/Reality. Could anyone say for certain which was which?
It was dark outside, which meant it was fairly late, since the sun didn‘t go down until well after
nine. Mo opened her door. The air was heavy, warm, sweet with honeysuckle and pine, with a hint of rot
from the lake.
She went outside, one step, two. She didn‘t walk, not without purpose, and never at night. Mo did
not feel particularly at home in nature, and the loud call of insects, insistent and rhythmic, made her
uncomfortable. But she walked now, moving swiftly away from the cabin, into the woods, thinking about
eggs and dolls and Snake Finder and a medicine pole that may have lain at the bottom of her lake for a
thousand lifetimes, and the thin, membranous line between real and unreal.
Hello! I’m Mo! She thought, remembering her first glimpse of this valley and the echo of her
name. ―Hello,‖ she said softly.
―Hello.‖
She froze, her heart hammering. It was a man‘s voice, followed by a man‘s footfalls in the
underbrush. Mo considered running, but at the moment, she couldn‘t think of where her house was and,
besides, her body had ceased to function. Except for a persistent and rapid twitch in her left buttock, she
stood as still as a rabbit faced with imminent death.
―Mo?‖
To her relief, it was Charlie.
―What are you doing here?‖
―Nothing. Well, following you.‖
―What?‖
―I saw you leave, and I didn‘t know if you were all right.‖ He peered at her crookedly. ―Are you?‖
―Yes,‖ she answered, confused. ―I‘m fine.‖
―Okay. I don‘t want you to think I‘m stalking you or anything.‖
She smiled nervously.
―Want some company?‖
No. She almost said it, her mouth had already formed the word. He saw it and chuckled.
Mortified. She felt as if she were back in seventh grade, waiting by her locker in case Joey
Pellegrino walked past. I wasn’t waiting for you, she wanted to say, but that would have been ridiculous. Of
course she hadn‘t been waiting for him. She hadn‘t hoped with each footfall that it would somehow be him,
the young knight of shining hair and blushing cheeks come to claim her. She hadn‘t felt – ridiculous! – a
secret thrill when she recognized his voice, a crazy intimation that God and the universe had noticed her at
last, had pointed at her and, smiling benignly, sent a spark of light into her heart.
―All right,‖ she said, so tense that she felt nauseated.
He took her hand then, but they didn‘t walk at all. That would have been too dishonest, even for
seventh graders. She backed up against a tree, and he kissed her (Can this be? She wondered. Why? What
would he possibly…) and she felt the back of her hand scraping against the bark, and chips and dust
tumbling down the back of her collar, and then her arms were around his neck. His breath, a little beery,
flowing hot over his soft lips, warmed her neck, her eyes, the inside of her ear. She felt his eyelashes. He
still has eyelashes, he thought. And he would have hair on his calves, and the skin of his hands would
spring back when pinched, and the gray hairs on his head were so few that they could be plucked out.
And I could be anyone, she thought, not displeased. If she was an anonymous woman, a body in
the dark, she was at least acceptable that far. She might still be confused with someone he would want to
see in the daylight, if she could remain dressed, her face made up, if the light were dim and the darkness
forgiving..
―No, please…‖ She was too ashamed. If he wanted her, this young man, then it was something to
do with him, some anger, an irritation with another woman. Not her, not Mo.
―Don‘t make me stop,‖ he whispered. He unbuttoned her blouse, kissing her breasts, sucking on
her nipples.
She gasped with pleasure, feeling herself grow wet between her legs. So ashamed.
They slid down the tree together, she, scraped and bleeding and not caring, relieved for the pain,
the punishment, even as she slid out of her clothes and took him into her on the moss-covered roots, crying
out wild and uncontrollably, animal cries in the night, feeling him swelling, pushing, needing her for his
natural lust, a normal thing for him. He could not know the horror she felt at her betrayal –Of whom? She
screamed inside her head. Of Desmond?
As if he were watching her now. A flash of anger, Yes, all right, then. Is this how it was with you
every time you fucked some starry-eyed girl in a back bedroom at someone‘s cocktail party while I made
polite conversation and wondered how long you‘d take, what lie you‘d come up with? Is this how she
smelled, covered with sweat and spit and pussy, and was it delicious like this, like this? Was it, Desmond?
She panted. He held her down, riding her, pumping hard, and she opened her legs to take him in
deep, groaning, shivering, feeling his throbbing heart.
(Extra Space)
As it should be, she thought, moaning low, allowing the sea to wash over her.
The sea, home of Mari the creator. This was where the Goddess had brought her, here, with
this man, in order to feel his love and return it, quickly, before the moment passed and the love vanished
with it.
Love was no more than that, a moment, a sensation, the brief spark in a lightning bug’s tail. It
had nothing to do with what had gone before or what was yet to come. It had no meaning, no reality at
all, outside of its own extraordinary, encapsulated universe.
She had never told the acolytes about her encounter with this man, this commander of the
Keltoi whose destiny it was to destroy her and all her kind.
He had come to Araiama himself, months before she went to visit the rude camp where he lived.
He had spoken with her alone, near the lagoon where she had led him. He had tried to explain that she
and the other holy women could not remain in the temple. It was not his decision, he had told her. His
people needed the land. They would be coming, many of them, in the wake of the soldiers.
―My people were here first.‖
―There were others before you. Others will come after us. It is the way of things.‖
―What would you know about the way of things?‖ she demanded. ―You are a soldier, a killer.
You bring only death.‖
―That, too, Lady, is the way of things,‖ he said.
And there, in the ocean, the secret lagoon where the sacred snakes watched, he took her in his
arms and she did not object when his lips pressed against hers. She did not say I am inviolate, because
although she was a priestess, she was first a woman, and in her woman’s heart she knew that this was not
violation but joy, precious, fleeting, perfect.
The way of things.
He was rough but not cruel, his hands callused but made clean for his presentation to the
Lady. His chest was covered but hairless, betraying his youth, when he took off his coarse shirt. He
was sheened with sweat that mixed with the spray from the waterfall nearby. He lifted her onto a dry
rock and lay her down upon it.
It was an effort for him to be gentle, but he would not harm her, this rare creature who was
nearly as old as his mother, perhaps, yet singularly beautiful, and fragile as a bird’s wing, and fragrant as
a rose.
―Please save your own life,‖ he whispered as he unwrapped her, slowly, with exquisite care,
exposing her breasts –so white!—their nipples pink as a girl’s, that he took into his mouth one by one
and suckled like a baby. And then, as she sighed with passion, he moved lower with his mouth, running
his tongue along her smooth belly, stopping at the salty point at the top of her legs, and with the
smallest push he spread her thighs apart and sucked her there as well, drinking her juice while she moved
beneath him, offering him her slit, her holy vessel.
―Come to me,‖ she said, her voice ragged, husky. Wanton.
He moved once, heavily, to slide his hard shaft inside, and then he took her, shaking to contain
the scream that welled within him, hearing her own moans of release, feeling her pink nipples tighten as
she clenched around him, her body sucking him deeply into her, caressing him, loving him in the way a
man feels most truly loved, in the way beyond words or deeds or intention, beyond past or future: White
light. Oblivion.
They came back reluctantly, unwillingly, their eyelids fluttering in the sunlight, their bodies hot
with sweat, drying with the breeze. His gathered her up once more into his arms, kissing her neck. She
held his face with both hands.
―This can mean nothing,‖ she said.
―I know,‖ he answered, his face inexpressibly sad.
Then he got dressed and picked up the few items he had brought with him – a flask of water, a
knife – and with one last caress, he turned and walked away northward, leaving Araiama among the
mossy roots.
He looked back once. She was seated where she’d left her, nude, her back erect, her white
hair falling to her waist, the gray irises of her strange eyes so light that they seemed not to exist at all. A
fairy woman, a fantasy, a dream that shimmers only for a moment and then is gone forever.
The soldier turned away. For that is the way of things.
(Extra Space)
―Araiama,‖ Mo whispered. ―You didn‘t even know his name.‖
―What‘s that?‖ Charlie leaned in close. His hair, smelling of his mother‘s lavender-scented
shampoo, fell across her face.
―Oh.‖ She sat up. ―Nothing.‖
―Are you cold?‖
She felt the gooseflesh on her arms. ―I think it‘s late.‖
―Want to go?‖
―Yes,‖ Mo said, dressing quickly. Too quickly. Charlie held up his hand to stop her.
―Let me,‖ he said, buttoning her shirt. He got the sequence of buttons wrong, and she turned her
back to correct it.
―Was it okay?‖ he asked, confused by her nervous coldness.
―I‘m still in shock,‖ Mo said, attempting a laugh. ―But yes. It was…‖ She looked at him, and felt
her heart breaking. ―…wonderful,‖ she finished.
She kissed him once more, then, slipping into her shoes, she ran away like a deer.
Because she did not know what else to do.
Because she did not know how she felt, or if there was any reason for the sudden, irrational hope
that blossomed against her will inside her.
She was a 50-year-old woman. She knew that love solved nothing. It only complicated things; it
never simplified anything.
She ran, and did not stop running until long after she had passed her cabin with its warm, solitary
fire burning tamely in its grate. She ran until she reached the lake, and washed her face in its cool water as
her heart thudded, beating out its ancient music for all the earth to hear.
Chapter Thirty Three
Katherine
Katherine squinted into the morning‘s first rays of daylight and stretched her arms above her head.
She hadn‘t slept well—Forrest and Richard had been up most of the night singing drunken songs. Forrest‘s
had been mainly hymns, which had added to her irritation. Richard contributed a number of ditties in
Mandarin Chinese, which Forrest apparently found fascinating. Around three in the morning, Forrest had
been strumming his tsunami song on his guitar. Richard added a tuneless baritone to the chorus. Then Elsie
had brought over a bucket of water and sloshed it over the two men.
They were finally quiet now. The air was already hot, and the thick, almost bitter fragrance of
marigolds wafted through Katherine‘s screened window. The sensation was strangely erotic.
Here she was, at forty-eight, in charge of the Society Of The Arts fashion event of the year, with
two men who vied for her hand sleeping on the ground outside her door.
No, she thought, sitting up with a start. That wasn‘t how it was at all. And what a horrible, selfish
thought! She had been found out by her suffering husband to be an adulteress, after discovering that her
lover had cheated on her. The situation was nothing short of terrible, and she really ought to be vomiting
with remorse and anger and penitence.
Not stretching like a cat on sunny sheets.
Forrest had not stayed with Jazzy, even when he‘d had nowhere else to sleep. He had remained
with her, Katherine, despite the fact that she relegated him to the status of a dog. He loved her.
And so, apparently, did Richard, although that was harder to figure out. Since Richard‘s
increasingly lengthy forays to China, Katherine and Richard had never had much more than courteous
goodwill between them. On his infrequent visits home, they would go to restaurants for dinner, where
Richard reported in a terse but inoffensive manner on the progress of whatever project he was engaged in at
work.
Once, out of a sense of wifely duty, Katherine had visited China herself. She had planned on
spending a relaxing three weeks in Xi‘an redecorating Richard‘s undoubtedly Spartan apartment, but when
he met her at the airport, he informed her that his work plans had changed suddenly and the two of them
went straight from Customs to a small two-prop Cessna that deposited them in the middle of a freezing
plain of dust and scrubbrush where Magnetica was beginning work on a new natural gas pipeline.
The work was in the earliest stages, which meant that the two Magnetica executives on site lived
in vinyl Quonset huts without plumbing. To relieve herself, Katherine was obliged to walk some distance
into the wilderness and dig a trench with a shovel as a precaution against whatever wild animals might be
drawn to the scent of unwashed human flesh. It had been a ghastly experience for someone to whom a
broken fingernail normally required professional assistance. Katherine‘s proposed three weeks quickly
became three days, and Richard took her back to the Xi‘an airport with regretful apologies. Since that time,
she had remained guiltily comfortable in Chattanooga while Richard unfailingly sent home money for the
mortgage on the house, the car, and any expenses Katherine might incur in the service of her beauty.
And then, since Richard‘s retirement—his early and forced retirement, Katherine thought
bitterly—the two of them had shared a fairly easy, if empty, peace between them in the big house on River
Oaks Drive. Katherine had gone slowly crazy with the knowledge of her guilt and the passion of her love
for Forrest, but none of that had broken a ripple on the uneventful waters of her relationship with Richard.
She really hadn‘t thought he would mind very much if she left. Katherine supposed it had come
down to that.
So why had he come here, to Elysian Fields, like some jealous husband?
Katherine peered out her window. On the ground in front of the trailer lay Richard and Forrest, an
empty bottle and two packages of Fritos between them.
They both loved her, and she didn‘t need either of them.
Katherine got dressed—a vintage Caspar Weinberg pleated skirt and matching silk knit twinset,
now back in style. She was hosting a luncheon for the chicest women in SOTA at the best restaurant in
southern Tennessee.
Outside, she stepped carefully over her suitors and headed toward her car, leaving behind a cloud
of scent.
(Extra Space)
She hadn‘t quite made it to her car when she spotted Victoria Tanner. Katherine‘s first impulse
was to flee, but of course that was not an option. Victoria‘s Sebring convertible had skidded to a halt in a
wall of dust beside her before Katherine could even think about ducking.
For several awkward moments neither woman spoke. Victoria‘s expression was rapt, a
combination of astonishment and what would have amounted to embarrassment in a compassionate human
being but, in Victoria, was something much more salacious. It was as if she had just witnessed Katherine
Davis in the act of masturbation.
―Hello, Victoria,‖ Katherine said. Her cheeks were blazing. Instinctively she hung her head.
Victoria smelled prey. ―I heard that you‘d... relocated.‖ She looked back toward the ramshackle
trailer that Katherine had exited. ―Will you be putting your house—your other house,‖ she said pointedly,
―on the market soon?‖
Katherine swallowed. ―You never know what the future will bring,‖ she said, feeling stupid even
as she spoke the words.
―Don‘t you, now?‖ Victoria smiled.
―Well, please excuse me.‖ Katherine unlocked her car with the remote.
―SOTA business?‖ The question was almost a whisper.
―Yes,‖ Katherine whispered back, afraid that her voice would quaver. From the safety of her car,
she ran her hand over her upper lip, which was dotted with perspiration, realizing too late that she had
probably smeared her lipstick. She pulled down the mirror, saw Victoria‘s still smiling face in it, and
slapped it back into place. Forcing herself to watch the road ahead, her bowels cramping violently,
Katherine cruised slowly over the gravel toward the main road.
(Extra Space)
Bebe knifed through the water, feeling clear-headed for the first time since Cynthia left.
She loved swimming. Water, especially natural, unchlorinated water like this, always brought her
back to her senses. Thirty years before, she‘d made it to the Olympic trials on the strength of her Butterfly
and American Crawl. She‘d thought about getting into cold water swimming, too, but that was the year that
Wilhelmina first spotted her at the Brussels airport, and within three weeks, Bebe was posing for a six-page
Vogue spread for Halston.
Funny, she thought. Of all the things she might have done with her life back when she was
swimming, she‘d never, ever thought about modeling.
It wasn‘t that she didn‘t care about fashion; she did. She‘d made almost all her own clothes since
she was fourteen, despite her stepmother Amanda‘s diatribes against homemade dresses. She‘d only
allowed Bebe to wear them at all because they were so well made that they might have come from a
couture house.
It was Bebe‘s stepmother, in fact, who had helped her the most, although that probably hadn‘t
been her intention. Amanda‘s pet designer, Laurent de Foche (whose real name, though equally French,
sounded far less aristocratic) had allowed the pre-teen Bebe into his 30th Street workshop, where the sewing
women taught her all about serging, smocking, shirring, interfacing, buttonholes, frog closures, and
everything else she‘d need to put together anything from corsets to furs.
Dressmaking had always been her first love, but of course someone from Beryl Butler‘s
background would never have been permitted to sew clothes for a living. Or swim. And certainly not
massage the flaccid buttocks of other women. The only things she had been permitted to do with her life –
attend an Ivy League college and marry a promising young man – were the two activities she‘d had
absolutely no interest in.
And so her family no longer cared to know her. Amanda had sent word along with the money
Cynthia had asked for when she‘d called from General Grant‘s. The Butlers‘ rejection hadn‘t been because
Cynthia was Bebe‘s lover. It was because Cynthia was a nobody.
That didn‘t matter. Bebe had long ago made peace with herself over the Butlers. The whole
arrogant bunch of them weren‘t worth a toenail paring from Cynthia‘s misshapen feet.
Move on, she told herself. No use crying over a runaway girlfriend. Or a phony countess. Or a
suicidal mother. There‘ll always be some woman or other to break your heart. Just do your best, and move
on.
She kept swimming until her arms were too tired to pull out of the water.
(Extra Space)
Katherine knew by a quarter after twelve that no one was going to show up for the luncheon. Still,
she waited, first fussing with the flowers and place settings, conferring with the maitre d‘ about the elegant
sweep service she had requested, in which each plate was to be placed exactly one second after the previous
one, adjusting each chair. Finally, at twelve forty five, after sitting in mortified silence while the waitstaff
stood by, fidgeting and coughing politely, she thanked them, paid the bill for the uneaten food, and walked
back to her car. The two-minute stroll through the parking lot seemed like the longest walk of Katherine‘s
life.
Chapter Thirty Four
Liz
Ever since their first hungry, drunken night in the pup tent, Katherine‘s two displaced suitors had
found a champion in Henya, who had taken it upon herself to feed the starvelings. At first she had brought
them small offerings—some cold biscuits, soup in a thermos, sandwiches, simple casseroles -- but then,
spurred on by their need and their effusive compliments, Henya became emboldened. For the past week,
the men had been dining on pork shoulder with apple glaze, beef tips, au gratin potatoes, chocolate cake,
grits with cheese, and all the other recipes Henya had, up till now, prepared only for herself.
She was disappointed when she saw that the red tent was empty. In her hands quivered a fresh
banana pudding, still warm. Henya had been so eager to make it that she hadn‘t even changed out of her
nurse‘s uniform. Feeling vaguely foolish, she turned back toward her own Airstream when she spotted a
teenage girl sitting on the steps of Katherine‘s trailer. The girl was eating a candy bar and simultaneously
licking her fingers and trying to push her hair off her face with her wrist. Even though it was after four in
the afternoon, the temperature was still in the mid-nineties, and the girl looked miserable in the heat.
―I don‘t think Katherine‘s home,‖ Henya said, using her assertive charge nurse‘s voice. Since she
was still in uniform, she carried off the authority well. ―Can I help you?‖
The girl shook her head. ―No, thanks. I have to talk to Mrs. Davis.‖
―Well, it‘s too hot to be sitting on those metal steps. At least wait in the shade.‖
The girl lowered her head.
―Are you hungry? I got some good banana pudding here.‖
She shook her head again.
Henya moved closer. ―Honey, I can see something‘s bothering you pretty bad, to be sitting out
here in the sun with your shirt soaking wet. Why don‘t you come into my trailer and wait for Ms. Davis
there? I‘ll call her for you, so you‘ll know when she comes in. Which might be a while, by the way. She
had a big lunch thing today.‖
―I know,‖ the girl said in a whisper. ―My mom was talking about it. She...‖
There was something about the girl‘s manner that warned Henya. This was how kids looked just
before they smashed objects, crashed cars, hit one another, or cut themselves. Henya knew. She had done
all of those things herself.
―What‘s your name?‖ she asked quietly.
―It doesn‘t matter,‖ the girl said. ―Mrs. Davis wouldn‘t know me, anyway. Only my mother. And
she‘s probably sorry that she knows her.‖
―Is your mom one of the ...‖ she tried to remember the silly name of the group whose approval
Katherine sought so ardently. ―... the lunch ladies?‖
―There was no lunch,‖ she said. ―My mother saw to that.‖ Liz took a deep breath. ―I heard her
talking to someone on the phone. She made sure no one showed up.‖
Henya took a step backward. ―But why? Why would she do something like that?‖
―Because she‘s a bitch!‖ Liz almost screamed the words.
At the same moment Katherine appeared from behind the trailer. Her eyes were red and her
makeup was gone. ―Who are you?‖ she asked irritably.
Liz looked up with a start, then swallowed. ―I‘m Liz Petrovsky. My mother‘s Victoria Tanner.‖
Henya gasped. ―The realtor?‖
―I know she cheated Mo Owens with this place,‖ the girl said earnestly. ―She almost killed me for
helping with the lake reclamation. But I didn‘t know until after school today that she wrecked your lunch
party on purpose. I heard her on the phone. She was telling her new boyfriend how she was going to get
even with you, and she was laughing about it.‖
All Henya heard was the girl‘s tone of voice when she said the word boyfriend.
―Anyway, I came here to help.‖
―With what?‖ Katherine asked, aware of how bitter she sounded.
―I don‘t know. Anything.‖ The girl shrugged, then burst into angry tears. ―She‘s such a bitch. I‘m
sorry. She was actually laughing about it! And then when I told her how evil I thought she was, it didn‘t
even matter.‖ She wiped her nose on her arm, brightening manically. ―I know. I could call everyone at the
lunch and tell them. I mean, I know the truth. I‘ll tell them she‘s a bitch.‖ Her lips, trembling and wobbly,
swallowed the tears that streamed down her face. ―I told her, ‗You‘re just a bitch!‘ I did. And she
slapped... slapped me, but it didn‘t even hurt, ‗cause I hate her so much—‖
Henya took the girl in her arms and held her close. Liz submitted to her, sobbing onto Henya‘s
crisp white cotton shoulder.
―You‘re Liz Petrovsky.‖ It was Bebe, soaking wet. She was wearing a bikini top and a sarong that
had started life as a tablecloth.
―Petrovsky,‖ Katherine said after a moment.
The girl nodded, trying to bring herself under control without much success. Henya kept her arms
around her, steady as a rock.
―Forrest McCormick‘s told me about you. You‘re the wonderful singer in his chorale.‖
Liz sniffed. ―He... he said I was wonderful?‖
―More than once,‖ Katherine said. Over Liz‘s shoulder, Henya nodded approvingly.
―So why the tears, Ms. Wonderful?‖
Liz swallowed, managing a weak smile. ―It‘s my mother,‖ she said. ―She... she...‖ She stared at
Bebe. ―Oh, my God, you‘re Beryl Butler.‖
―Ouch. You weren‘t supposed to recognize me.‖
―Are you kidding? You‘re in a book I‘ve got, Faces of the Century. You‘re next to Audrey
Hepburn!‖ She choked on her drink. ―I don‘t mean you‘re old or anything. It‘s just—‖
Bebe laughed and waved a hand in dismissal. ―It‘s okay. Whatever. What‘s the problem?‖
―Her mother‘s Victoria Tanner.‖
―Ah. That would explain her despair.‖
Liz laughed. ―No shit.‖
―Apparently Victoria convinced all the SOTA members to cancel on me‖Katherine said. ―The
fashion show‘s scheduled for the twentiy-first, three weeks from today, and I‘ve got no models.‖
―The bitch.‖
―That‘s my mom,‖ Liz said, grinning through her tears. ―I‘d say let‘s egg her house, except I‘d be
the one whod have to clean it up.‖
―We‘ll think about revenge later,‖ Bebe said. ―Right now we have to figure out a way to mount
Katherine‘s show. Was everyone in the group going to model?‖
―Oh, no,‖ Katherine assured her. ―Just the... the...‖ She reddened.
―The what?‖ Liz asked. Katherine studied the floor.
―The thin ones,‖ Bebe said.
―Oh.‖
A bird chirped into the silence.
―I always wondered about that,‖ Henya said finally.
―About what?‖
―Why models have to be thin.‖ Everyone looked at her. ―I mean, real women aren‘t thin. Not all of
them, at least. And the ones that are—like me – aren‘t thin in the same places models are.‖ She poked a
finger into her ample rear.
―It‘s because clothes look better on thin women,‖ Katherine said irritably. ―That is... designers...
think they do... I guess.‖ She lapsed back into silence.
―Well, I think they‘re wrong,‖ Henya went on. ―Clothes should be able to make you look better. I
mean, they shouldn‘t just stick a skinny little 20-year old model into a skinny little dress. That doesn‘t do
anything for anybody. What they should be doing is putting that dress on somebody like me.‖ She raised
her eyebrows at Bebe. ―Or you. And then they should wrap something around the middle or put on a jacket
or something to make it look good on us. You know what I‘m saying?‖
―Man, can you imagine?‖ Liz said. ―There‘d be a mass suicide at Vogue.‖
Katherine laughed. Bebe didn‘t. ―I think that‘s a great idea,‖ she said.
―Having Henya model?‖ Katherine asked, aghast, then attempted to hide her expression.
―Oh, Lordie, you‘ve got to be joking!‖ Henya exclaimed.
―I‘m not. You said it yourself. Clothes should make you look better. This will be a show about
what real women can wear.‖
―You could call it ‗Beautiful Women‘,‖ Henya offered. ―No. Better yet, ‗We Beautiful Women.‘‖
―But it‘s the Society Of The Arts!‖ Katherine protested.
―Aren‘t they real women?‖ Bebe asked. ―At leat some of them?‖
―Well...‖
―The problem is, you‘ve only been dealing with the thin ones. The young ones, the ones who work
out every day, the ones who only shop at Troutman‘s for mattress covers. But there are plenty of others
who look just like us.‖
―So you‘re saying—‖
―I‘m saying you‘ve got all the models you need right here. Plus I‘ll bet you could get a few more
from SOTA.‖
―Like who?‖
Bebe thought for a moment. ―Pamela Oglethorpe.‖
―Bunny? The president?‖
―I give her a massage three times a week. She‘s had a double mastectomy.‖
―Would… would she like to model?‖ Katherine asked uncertainly. ―I mean, she didn‘t put her
name on the sign-up sheet.‖
―Of course not, with the standards you‘re talking about,‖ Bebe said.
―That‘s not fair, Bebe. Everybody thinks –‖
―Forget what everybody thinks,‖ Bebe said. ―Just leave it to me.‖
Katherine sighed. ―Okay but that‘s still only four, unless you count Elsie and Jazzy.‖
―Why not?‖
Henya rolled her eyes. ―Because they‘re both insane.‖
―Welcome to the world of fashion,‖ Bebe said.
―This is a terrific idea,‖ Liz said. ―I‘ll make flyers—at school, so my mom doesn‘t know.‖
―And you‘ll model,‖ Bebe said. ―And Mo. That‘s six.‖
Liz swallowed. ―I‘m too fat to wear anything cute,‖ she said quietly.
―That‘s what you think,‖ Bebe said.
―No, really, I couldn‘t—‖
―Shut up. You‘re modeling.‖
―Are you?‖
Bebe was silent. ―Of course you are,‖ Katherine said. ―Someone has to show us what to do.‖
―I‘m hiding out here,‖ Bebe said. ―Nobody even knows I‘m in the state, and that‘s how I want to
keep it.‖
―Some of the kids were saying you were in town,‖ Liz said, then added quickly, ―But nobody ever
saw you.‖
―Why do you think that is?‖ Bebe asked. Liz reddened. She looked at the table.
―Do you think it‘s because I‘m fat?‖
Liz‘s face grew even redder. ―I‘m fat, too,‖ she whispered.
―Yes,‖ Bebe said. ―Do you think that‘s why people don‘t notice you?‖
Liz‘s eyes flooded. Henya‘s ignited with anger. ―I don‘t know what you‘re getting at, Bebe,
but—‖
―Shut up, Henya. You‘ve never been five pounds overweight in your life. You don‘t get to be in
this conversation.‖ She turned back to Liz. ―I asked you a question, baby girl. Do you think people don‘t
pay attention to you because you‘re fat?‖
Katherine and Henya exchanged a wary glance.
―I ...I...‖ Liz stammered. ―I guess.... Yes. Yes, that‘s what I think.‖
―Well, you‘re wrong. It‘s not because you‘re fat. People don‘t notice you because you don‘t want
them to. You‘re probably afraid that if they see you, they‘ll only see that you‘re fat. So you don‘t let them
see you at all.‖
Liz made a face. ―Maybe that‘s why you don‘t want people to find you,‖ she said defiantly.
Bebe stared back at her. ―Maybe so,‖ she said finally.
―Can we use your name?‖ Katherine asked, breathless.
―Oh, come on.‖
―Beryl Butler, long lost fashion icon—‖
―Weighing in at two hundred forty pounds,‖ Bebe said.
―That‘s more than me!‖ Liz said.
―Give or take a stone.‖
―We beautiful women, Bebe, remember?‖ Katherine said. ―Bunny Oglethorpe and her
mastectomy, Elsie with her orthopedic shoes—‖
―Henya‘s pork chop hips,‖ Henya said.
―Jazzy—‖
―Who just might not wear anything at all,‖ Henya said, worried.
―One fat teenager,‖ Liz said.
―Reclusive novelist,‖ Katherine said. ―Can‘t forget Mo.‖
Bebe sighed. ―And a gay ex-model in a size 22.‖
Chapter Thirty Five
Bebe
Pamela Oglethorpe waited with a book in her hand, as she did at every appointment. She always
came early, even though hers was the first massage of the day, Mondays and Thursdays at eight in the
morning. The other members of SOTA assumed that the early massage was a part of Bunny‘s workout
schedule, and no one was surprised. She hadn‘t risen to the position of VP of Operations at ITT by
sleeping in.
Pamela had married for the first time in her fifties. The man she chose was an Indian oncologist
who specialized in breast reconstruction surgery at Vanderbilt University Hospital. She had met him, she
told the members of the Society, at a seminar on the diversification of liquid crystal technology at
Vanderbilt. After their courtship, Pamela had resigned from ITT and taken up the life of a wealthy Southern
matron, filling her days with volunteer work and her evenings entertaining, a change which greatly pleased
her 80-year-old mother, who had raised her daughter from the beginning to be an aristocratic Southern
housewife.
With the exception of her mother‘s delight, none of this was true. Dr. Rabindranath Patel had seen
a terrified woman from New York City through the ordeal of two bouts of breast cancer and two radical
mastectomies over the course of eighteen months, all treated exclusively on weekends, so that Pamela
would miss as little work as possible.
She never informed ITT about her illness. Every one of the nearly four hundred thousand dollars
required to pay for her surgery and chemotherapy came out of her own pocket—she had inherited a sizable
fortune upon the death of her father—and she never told anyone, not even her mother, about her condition.
―But why?‖ Dr. Patel had asked. ―You have insurance. Certainly a corporation the size of ITT
would not dismiss you for an illness of this gravity. And as to your telling no one about this, I... I hardly
know what to say. Cancer is not the sort of thing you want to face alone.‖
But she did face it alone, all of it—the initial, shattering diagnosis, the first mastectomy, the
recurrence, the removal of the second breast, the chemo, the radiation sickness, the constant flights from
New York to Nashville, the burgeoning expense, the suffocating loneliness.
She did not have her breasts reconstructed. That would have taken more time.
ITT had one of its strongest quarters ever.
After a stirring end-of-year speech to the Board of Directors about the future of company
operations worldwide, Pamela announced her retirement. Her peers and superiors were shocked; her
subordinates despaired. She was offered an eighty thousand dollar raise. A rival company dangled its
presidency at her. Newsweek ran a story about how an unmarried Southern belle came to hold one of
America‘s top corporations by the short hairs, and wondered what the redoutable Ms. Oglethorpe‘s next
move would be.
As it turned out, it was marriage. She wed Dr. Patel and the two of them moved into the
Oglethorpe mansion along with Pamela‘s ecstatic mother, whose dreams of wedded bliss for her daughter
finally came true, even though Pamela was 53 years old and was marrying a dark-skinned foreigner with an
accent.
Women‘s groups objected stridently to Oglethorpe‘s seeming betrayal of everything she had once
valued—her independence, her success, her vision of American business, even, some lamented, a possible
future in politics—for the standard doctor husband and luncheons with the Society Of The Arts.
SOTA was delighted to have her.
Pamela never explained to either, or to anyone at all, the reason for her retirement. Only her
husband, who was still her physician, knew. So careful was she to keep her secret, in fact, that she never
did consider having her flattened breasts augmented, even though her husband assured her that he would
hand-pick his associates for the surgery to assure complete secrecy.
―No,‖ Pamela insisted. ―Someone will find out. You‘ll just have to accept me flat-chested.‖
Dr. Patel shook his head. He was utterly unconcerned with the voluptuousness of his wife‘s
breasts, but it seemed vaguely insulting that she would refuse even to discuss the matter, considering that
he was one of the nation‘s leading authorities on breast reconstruction. ―I simply do not understand—‖
―Because I don‘t want to be a survivor, Rabin!‖ she‘d shouted at him. ―All my life I‘ve been a
winner, can you understand that? A winner, not a survivor! Not someone who‘s lucky to have made it to
the finish line while the moon‘s rising and everyone except the family‘s gone home. I am not a baldheaded, aging woman with death coursing through my veins.‖
―Oh, Pamela, please,‖ Dr. Patel said. He found her occasional passions difficult to bear. La
Oglethorpe had always been so logical, so deliciously rational, so utterly unself-pitying. That was what he
loved about her. ―Fine, fine,‖ he relented. ―I really don‘t care if you have breasts or not.‖
―I know,‖ she said with finality. The doctor opened a medical journal to read, sorry he had ever
broached the subject. It was just that breast reconstruction was his specialty, and she was being so... so
damned prickly about it all.
(Extra Space)
―Ready?‖ Bebe said, breezing into the room. She always smelled so clean, Pamela noticed. Under
Bebe‘s expert hands, Pamela lay prone on the table, allowing herself to melt into the mindless pleasure of
the massage.
―Bunny, I want you to be in SOTA‘s fashion show,‖ Bebe said.
Instantly, Pamela tensed. She was not accustomed to hearing Bebe speak; that was what made her
massages so relaxing. For her to talk now, about SOTA, of which Bebe was not even a member, and to call
Pamela by the nickname she had always hated... well, it was almost too irritating to be borne.
―Your back‘s getting all knotty,‖ Bebe said.
―That‘s because you‘re annoying me.‖
―Well, I‘m going to annoy you even more.‖
―We‘ll see about that,‖ Pamela said, rising while draping the towel around her. Bebe stopped her
by laying both her hands over the scars across Pamela‘s chest, in the place where her breasts would have
been. Pamela gasped in horror. Reflexively, she slapped Bebe‘s face.
For a moment, neither woman spoke. They just stared, each of them wild with fury, into one
another‘s eyes.
―Just how ashamed of your body are you?‖ Bebe asked.
―I‘m going to have you arrested.‖
―Oh, stop. I‘ve asked you to model in a fashion show, and you‘re acting like I‘ve set fire to your
house.‖
―How dare you interfere with my personal—‖
―Don‘t you get it, Bunny?‖ Bebe shouted over her. ―You are not the only woman who ever lost
her breasts!‖ she pushed her client backward, so that Pamela reeled back onto the massage table. ―There are
plenty of others out there, hiding, thinking they‘re not really women anymore, thinking they‘re not good
enough—‖
―I‘m good enough for anything!‖ Pamela shouted.
―Then show us!‖
―Show off my scarred chest? As if you had any idea—‖
―I do, Bunny. Look at me. This is the body no one wants,‖ Bebe said, dislaying her girth. ―We‘re
out there hiding, too, us fat girls, pretending we never eat, looking through the ugly clothes in the plus size
sections, seeing each other all day long on the street, but never on TV, never in the movies, listening to
comedians make fun of us... And there are others, too. Elsie, another one of the show‘s models, is seventysix years old. She‘s been invisible for a long time. We‘ve got a teenage girl who‘s as big as I am. In high
school terms, a loser.‖
―Is that what you‘re going to call your little band of hideous models? The Losers‘ show? That
ought to be a big draw.‖
―We‘re going to call it ‗We Beautiful Women‘,‖ Bebe said.
Pamela wanted to speak but couldn‘t. ―Beautiful women like you,‖ Bebe added.
Pamela waved her away. She wasn‘t used to being bullied. No one, not even her eminent husband,
told her what to do. Particularly if it involved her breasts. ―You don‘t know what you‘re asking,‖ she said.
―And you‘re only asking me to begin with because I‘m president of the Society. You could ask someone
else, anyone else.‖
―Victoria Tanner‘s talked them all out of participating.‖
―Why?‖
―Because Katherine‘s living in a trailer park with her boyfriend and her husband.‖
―What?‖
Bebe shrugged. ―It‘s not important. We all have secrets.‖
Pamela shook her head. ―My point is, I‘ll be wearing a prosthetic. So who‘s going to know—or
care—if I have breasts or not?‖
―Everyone, if you tell them,‖ Bebe said.
Bunny had no response. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
―And I thought you might know some other women – your husband would, certainly – who might
care to stop being ashamed of who they are and what life‘s given them, and might want instead to hold their
heads up and tell the world that they look just fine the way they are.‖
Bunny looked around, stricken, desperate. ―A noble sentiment,‖ she said at last. ―But it‘s out of
the question. Utterly.‖
―Would you ask the others, at least?‖ Bebe asked.
―Ask them what?‖
―If they‘d like to stop hiding in the attic like the crazy aunt nobody‘s supposed to know about.‖
―Now, you‘re just –‖
―Or are you sure they‘d rather go on hiding?‖
―Of course they would!‖ Bunny said heatedly. ―They don‘t want to be gawked at like carnival
freaks!‖
―Is that what you are?‖
―This session is over,‖ she said coldly.
―Yes, Ma‘am,‖ Bebe said. ―I‘ll send in another masseuse.‖
Pamela turned her back.
―But you‘re going to think about what I said.‖
―Oh, you‘re sure of that, are you?‖
―Yes, I am,‖ Bebe said.
(Extra Space)
What have I done?
Mo opened her eyes, swallowing the panic that rose in her throat.
Good God, had she actually had sex with Charlie Nolan? There, in the woods, like a rutting
woodland creature? Or worse, like a stalking Cougar, licking her chops over young meat?
She moaned. Her head was beginning to throb. What had she been thinking?
There was a pounding at her front door. Charlie. Oh, no. A million thoughts raced through her
head.
I need time to look decent.
Does he think he owns me now? Am I Charlie Nolan’s ―woman‖? Will he introduce me as his old
lady? Will he start calling me Babe?
What if the others find out? Will they laugh? Will there be a whispering campaign throughout the
trailer park?
I feel like a fool.
I feel like a girl.
The scrapes on my back need antiseptic.
How will I ever write again?
Why is it that I feel light-headed every time I think about it?
Did he really do that to me?
What if he doesn’t want to see me again?
What if he does?
―Wait,‖ she called out feebly, stumbling out of bed, casting about for a hairbrush.
The pounding continued. ―Hey, c‘mon! Everybody out for volleyball!‖ Bebe shouted. ―Let‘s go,
Mo! Open up!‖
―All right, all right,‖ Mo muttered, wrapping a robe around her as she staggered to the doorway.
At least it wasn‘t Charlie.
―Jesus Aitch, how many nervous breakdowns are going on around here, anyway?‖ Bebe shouted.
―You look terrible.‖
―Thank you,‖ Mo whispered, placing her hand on her head to calm the pounding Bebe‘s voice was
causing.
―I need you to help with Katherine‘s fashion show.‖
Mo looked up blearily. ―By doing what?‖
―Publicity. You‘re a writer. Get the newspaper to do a story on us.‖
―I‘m writing other things.‖
―No, you‘re not. Everybody knows you have writer‘s block.‖ Bebe‘s easy cruelty hurt. ―Come
on,‖ she said, more gently. ―You can do this for us.‖
Mo didn‘t answer.
―Look, I know you don‘t want to be here. But the point is, neither do the rest of us.‖
―All right –‖
―No, tell me. Outside of your stories, where everybody is wise and insightful and knows exactly
what‘s wrong with them, who on this whole goddamn planet gets the life they want? Huh?‖ She poked Mo
again. ―And even if you get what you think you want, it‘s just a matter of time before you realize it isn‘t
exactly right, either.‖
Mo thought of Charlie. She couldn‘t even be certain if their moment of love had been a good thing
or a bad thing. Or nothing. ―That‘s too much philosophizing for me right now,‖ Mo said, running her hand
through her hair.
―Oh, fine,‖ Bebe said irritably. ―Forget the press release. We just thought you‘d want to be
involved.‖ She stared daggers at Mo. ―For a change.‖
―Okay, I‘m sorry.‖
―Then you‘ll do it?‖
―All right. Yes,‖ Mo said with the enthusiasm of someone who had just agreed to shoot the family
dog.
―Good.‖ Bebe fished a piece of paper from her jeans pocket and handed it to her. On it were the
details of the show. ―Make sure you play up Katherine.‖
―Katherine?‖ Mo asked, yawning. ―I‘m no P.R. genius, but it‘s pretty clear that what ought to be
played up is you. Beryl Butler on the runway again.‖
Bebe tensed, her earthy bravado gone. ―No, I don‘t think so,‖ she asked, as if Mo had suggested a
nude pictorial. ―It shouldn‘t be about me.‖
―Why not?‖ Mo was genuinely puzzled.
―Well, it‘s a SOTA thing,‖ Bebe waffled.
Mo made a face. ―What do either of us care about SOTA?‖
Bebe puffed her cheeks out. ―All right. It‘s because I weigh two hundred and forty pounds,‖ Bebe
said. ―Oh, God, listen to me. I‘m thinking just like Bunny Oglethorpe.‖
Mo laughed. ―Bunny Oglethorpe? That‘s a real name?‖
―The southern cuteness is deceptive. La Oglethorpe is going to save Katherine‘s ass. And we‘re
going to help her.‖
Mo took a deep breath. ―Okay, Bebe. Forgive me for being insensitive, but… why?‖ She spread
out her hands. ―I mean, Katherine is one of my oldest friends, and I want her to do well with her fashion
show, but frankly, my interest in all this is, at best, limited.‖
―Oh, how thick can you be?‖ Bebe groused. ―It‘s not for the fricking Society Of The Arts,‖ she
said. ―It‘s not even for Katherine.‖
Mo looked at her, puzzled.
―It‘s because life is slipping away from us. You and me both, Mo.‖ She opened Mo‘s refrigerator
and helped herself to a piece of cold pizza. ―I used to be in every fashion magazine in the world, and now I
live in a trailer in Beltsville.‖ She took a massive bite, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her
piercing blue eyes, as gorgeous as they were when they looked out from those magazines, narrowed. Lines
radiated around them, making them appear even more laser-like. ―Don‘t say you don‘t know what I‘m
talking about. You do.‖
Mo inhaled sharply. She didn‘t know whether to slap Bebe or cry. ―All right, yes,‖ she said at
last. ―I do.‖ she said. ―My name is disappearing from speakers‘ lists. My books are showing up at library
clearance sales instead of on the shelves.‖
―You got it. The only place you see my picture these days is in coffee table books with titles like
Retrospectives In Fashion.‖
Mo sat down. ―The weird thing is, I never wanted that… that celebrity in the first place. Really, I
didn‘t.‖
―Neither did I,‖ Bebe said, polishing off the pizza. ―But it‘s hard to go from being a somebody to
being a nobody, isn‘t it?‖
Mo nodded slowly. ―I suppose that‘s it. Vanity. I like to think I‘m immune to it, but I guess I‘m
not. It was nice to have people care. Or think they cared.‖
―Even if they didn‘t know you.‖
―That‘s right. Even if they made you up.‖
―The point is, we don‘t have to just hang around while we disappear from sight.‖
Mo laughed. ―Are you suggesting that I change careers? To what – writing press releases?‖
Bebe rolled her eyes. ―I said you were thick,‖ she said. ―No, Mo. I‘m just saying that there‘s life
here. Life, with a capital L. Not the life you envisioned, maybe – this certainly isn‘t how I thought my life
would be as I approached middle age – but it‘s still something. Something different.‖
―Something new,‖ Mo said, trying to convince herself.
―I don‘t know how I‘m going to live without Cynthia, but here‘s Life opening the door to my
trailer, showing me a path to somewhere. And it‘s taking you somewhere, too.‖
―Maybe,‖ Mo said, thinking again of Charlie, wondering if that was a path she even wanted to be
on.
Bebe sighed. ―Now that I‘ve said that, I suppose I‘ll have to haul this big body down a runway
again. A runway in Troutman‘s Department Store in Chattanooga, Tennessee.‖
―Think of it as the path where capital L Life is leading you.‖
―I was serious,‖ Bebe said.
―I know. And if it leads you somewhere you never should have gone, then…‖ Mo shrugged.
―Bebe sighed wistfully. ―Then I guess I‘ll just have to punch someone out,‖ she said.
Chapter Thirty Six
Ensemble
Pamela Oglethorpe did not report Bebe to the management of the health club. In fact, for reasons
she never revealed, she agreed to model in the SOTA fashion show, and even came to the first rehearsal at
Troutman‘s Department Store with two volunteers. One was a woman with no eyebrows and a silk scarf
wrapped artfully around her bald head. The other was quite elderly, and in a wheelchair.
―Double amputee,‖ she said by way of introduction. ―Madge Wilson. Can you use me?‖
―The perfect model,‖ Bebe said.
Troutman‘s of Chattanooga had agreed to provide both the venue for the Society Of The Arts
fashion show and the clothing featured in it, on condition that everything was to be restored to its original
condition by the following morning. That meant that none of the garments could be altered except through
the use of tape or pins. There was to be no sewing, and absolutely no disassembly.
This caused a problem for the models, who were now no longer regulation Size 2 SOTA
thoroughbreds, but a wide range of big-hipped, bent-backed, thick-waisted, stumpy-legged, ordinary
women. None of the available clothes looked good on any of them. The plus-size clothes were either
mannish or shapeless, and there was absolutely nothing that a size 18 teenager might find interesting.
Henya‘s clothes were tight on the bottom and baggy on top. In order to accommodate Elsie‘s post-60 year
old middle, the rest of the dress she tried on was huge. The bald woman, whose name was Phoebe, was so
thin that her limbs looked like sticks growing out of whatever she put on. Mo‘s pants were six inches too
long. And regardless of what she wore, Madge‘s obtrusive wheelchair made her look like Dr. Strangelove.
―It‘s not going to work,‖ Bebe said. ―Nobody can look decent in these clothes.‖
―But people wear them all the time,‖ Katherine objected. ―This store‘s been in business for a
hundred years.‖
―Well, I‘d say that‘s a long time to be looking bad.‖
―What do you wear?‖ Madge Wilson asked.
Bebe spread her hands and took a look at herself. ―Jeans and tee shirts, I guess,‖ she said. ―The
odd plaid shirt. I haven‘t paid any attention to clothes since I stopped working with them. I just didn‘t
realize that people who want to look nice only have stuff like this to choose from. It‘s revolting.‖
―It‘s Middle America,‖ Katherine said. ―Fortunately, the big malls have places like Donna Karan
and Gucci and Michael Kors where you can get decent clothes.‖
―If you‘re rich,‖ Bebe said.
―Not even then,‖ Elsie said. ―No one wants to look at an old woman. They don‘t even want your
money.‖
―Even Gucci wouldn‘t look good on me,‖ Henya said.
Mo made a quick excuse and left for home. She had agreed to fifteen minutes of rehearsal, and the
time was up.
Katherine began to cry.
―I smell disaster, Ned said, grinning. He and Charlie were measuring for the runway ramp Bebe
wanted.
―Smell is right. These clothes suck,‖ Bebe said.
―Oh, my show, my show,‖ Katherine lamented.
―Maybe we could make arrangements with a better store,‖ Pamela Oglethorpe said.
―No, it‘s not them, it‘s us,‖ Phoebe said reasonably. ―We‘re not proper models.‖
―Bullshit!‖ Bebe bellowed, her voice causing all the shoppers on the Better Dresses floor to look
up. ―We look like the people who buy them. And Elsie‘s right, Even Gucci doesn‘t have clothes for a size 8
woman with a size 14 waist.‖
―What the hell kind of name is Gucci, anyway,‖ Elsie mumbled.
―Please, Bebe,‖ Katherine begged. ―Don‘t leave me now. The show‘s in less than three weeks.‖
―What are you talking about?‖
―You‘re not walking out?‖
―Of course not. I said I‘d help you, didn‘t I?‖
―Oh.‖ The relief in Katherine‘s voice was almost palpable. ―Then you‘ve got an idea. About the
clothes.‖
―Yep.‖ Bebe put her hands on her hips and looked about her, an Amazon Queen surveying her
domain. ―We‘re going to sew them ourselves.‖
―What?‖ Elsie choked.
―Sew?‖ Bunny Oglethorpe looked aghast.
Charlie guffawed.
―I know exactly what I want these garments to look like. We‘ve just got to put them together.‖
Phoebe and Madge exchanged glances.
Katherine staggered backward into a rack of sequined cocktail dresses and knocked them over.
Bebe maintained her Mussolini-like pose during the tension-filled silence that ensued.
Henya was the first to break it. ―I‘ve sewn curtains,‖ she volunteered meekly.
Ned blushed. ―Ronnie‘s made costumes for…‖ He cleared his throat. ―…plays and things,‖ he
said, sotto voce. ―I think Jimmy‘s helped him. I‘ll bet they‘ll both pitch in, if I cancel their bar tabs.‖
―I‘ve got a sewing machine,‖ Elsie said. ―I suppose I can do a hem or two.‖ She squinted her eyes
at Bebe. ―But I‘m not about to take any orders from you.‖
―I‘ll just need the machine,‖ Bebe said. ―I don‘t have one.‖
―And you think you‘ll be using mine? Now, hold on there, Missy--‖
―I have machines,‖ Madge said. ―And seamstresses.‖
―Oh?‖ Bebe smiled, a statue melting.
―Madge owns a bathing suit factory,‖ Bunny Oglethorpe said.
―Slimline Suits,‖ Madge said. ―But I‘m not going to change over those machines for free.‖
―I‘m reading you,‖ Bebe said.
―I‘m going to have to see your designs first.‖
―So am I,‖ added Phoebe.
―Bebe cocked her head, waiting.
Phoebe‘s Fabrics,‖ the woman said.
―That‘s you?‖
Phoebe nodded.
―What the hell‘s going on?‖ Elsie groused.
Bebe ignored her. ―Give me three days,‖ she told the businesswomen.
(Extra Space)
Three days later, Bebe had a sketchbook filled with designs, including a line of bathing suits.
Madge set her seamstresses to work two afternoons a week on remnant fabrics supplied by Phoebe, while
Bebe, Henya, Elsie, and Ned‘s friends took over a corner of General Grant‘s during their off-hours to
attend to accessories.
The General Grant boys were thrilled to meet Bebe Butler. They put up a banner welcoming her to
the bar, and celebrated with a jeroboam of non-alcoholic Chablis, but within two days she was already one
of the gang, due no special privileges.
―Troutman‘s isn‘t going to like it that you‘re not using their clothes,‖ Ronnie said. ―They‘ll
probably sue you or something.‖
―Oh, right. Your punishment will be to have to wear their boring dresses throughout the entire
Christmas season,‖ Fat Jimmy said.
―And no tiara.‖
Bebe looked up blankly. ―Oh my God,‖ she whispered. ―A tiara. You‘ve given me an idea.‖
―Please,‖ Ronnie said. ―There‘s nothing new about tiaras.‖
―Standard government issue,‖ Jimmy said, joining the cups of a gigantic papier mache bra. ―Now
this, on the other hand,‖ he said, holding up his construction, ―fulfils utterly the tackiness we theatrical
costumers strive to achieve.‖
―It‘s not going to be tacky,‖ Bebe said, hand-stitching a ruched bodice. ―It‘s going to be
awesome.‖
―Going to be stupid, if you ask me,‖ Elsie said.
―Well, I didn‘t ask you, did I?‖ Bebe exploded.
―Calm, calm,‖ Ronnie said. ―I‘ve got Halcyon, and I‘ll get you some water—‖
―She don‘t need that,‖ Elsie muttered. ― She‘s just horny, ‗cause she misses that screechy-voiced
girlfriend of hers.‖
They all shrieked with laughter. ―You tell her, Elsie,‖ Ronnie said.
―Just keep working,‖ Bebe said. ―Where‘s Ned?‖
―He can‘t sew.‖
―He‘s the bartender, isn‘t he? That customer‘s been standing there for ten minutes.‖ She nodded
toward a man at the bar.
―Damn,‖ Fat Jimmy said, hoisting himself out of his chair with an effort. ―I told Ned I‘d fill in for
him. Where‘d he go, anyway?‖
Ronnie shook his head. ―Who ever knows where that boy gets to,‖ he said.
(Extra Space)
Ned fought his way through a stack of pizza boxes and an obstacle course of standing beer bottles
to open the window of Andras‘ and Cynthia‘s motel room.
―Hey, you‘re letting out the air conditioning,‖ Andras said.
―But it smells terrible,‖ Ned said.
―Look, if you‘ve come to insult us –‖ Cynthia began, but Ned held up his hands in submission.
―Okay, I‘ll close it.‖
―Leave it open,‖ Cynthia said.
Ned took a deep breath. He looked around for somewhere to sit but, finding nothing, backed
against a wall.
―So,‖ Andras said, taking a swig of warm beer, ―you come to beg us to come back?‖
Cynthia rolled her eyes.
―Well…‖ Ned considered. ―Yes, actually.‖
Cynthia sat bolt upright in bed. ―You have?‖
―I have.‖
―Can‘t do without me, can you?‖ Andras wobbled his shiny head.
Ned looked at his hands. ―Jazzy can‘t,‖ he said softly.
Andras‘ face fell. ―She okay?‖
―Well, she‘s not sick or anything,‖ Ned said. ―But she never comes out of that trailer. I‘m worried
about her.‖
A host of changing emotions paraded across Andras‘ guileless face. ―Yeah, well…‖ He took
another drink. ―She deserves what she got. No-good whoring bitch.‖
―Oh, shut up,‖ Cynthia said. ―You‘re a whoring bitch.‖
―Hey, you‘re the bitch I‘m whoring with, what do you think about that?‖
―I think you‘re a fucking moron,‖ Cynthia said, propping herself up on her elbows. ―What about
Bebe?‖ she asked. ―I know she hasn‘t trapped herself inside a trailer. Has she mentioned me at all?‖
―Well…‖ Ned shifted from one foot to the other.
―She hasn‘t,‖ Cynthia said crestfallen.
―No, but she isn‘t the same.‖
―You don‘t have to say anything. I know she doesn‘t care that I‘m gone.‖
―But she does, Cynthia. That‘s why she‘s thrown herself into Katherine‘s fashion show. That and
swimming.‖
―A fashion show?‖
―Well, sort of. The ladies from Katherine‘s club were supposed to model clothes from Troutman‘s
Department Store in Chattanooga.‖
―I know,‖ Cynthia said. ―Big deal. I don‘t see why Katherine needs help with a dumb thing like
that.‖
―Well, it‘s gotten a lot more complicated. Bebe didn‘t like any of the clothes at the store, so she‘s
making everything from scratch. She‘s got everybody with a sewing machine for miles around helping, but
it‘s still only a couple of weeks away.‖
Cynthia rolled her eyes. ―Well, okay, so what‘s the deal? Does she want me to sew clothes or
something?‖
―No, er…‖ Ned fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt.
―Oh, right, I forgot. She doesn‘t need me for anything.‖
―Well, what I was hoping was that I might persuade the two of you to build something.‖
―For the show?‖
Ned nodded. ―Charlie Nolan and I are putting up the runway, and –‖
―What, you two candyasses?‖ Andras belched and rubbed his belly. ―That‘s a laugh, right there.‖
―Yes, well, we‘re muddling through, nevertheless,‖ Ned bristled.
―Guess you want some expert advice, though.‖
―No, we don‘t want advice,‖ Ned said firmly. ―We want this.‖ He took out Mo‘s drawing of the
Torii arch. ―The dimensions are so it‘ll fit the runway, but afterward we‘ll give it to Mo. She wants it.‖
―Piece of cake,‖ Andras said.
―If you don‘t want to come back to the trailer park, there‘s an old sawmill up on the cliff
overlooking the lake.‖
Cynthia nodded. ―Maybe that would be best,‖ she said in a small voice.
―Hey, don‘t you think Bebe‘ll want to see you?‖ Andras asked.
―I don‘t know if I want to see her!‖ she shrilled. ―She has no respect for my hands!‖
―Yeah. And Jazzy‘s a whoring bitch.‖
―Well, it‘s up to you,‖ Ned said. ―I‘ve brought your tools.‖
―Put ‗em in my truck,‖ Andras said.
Ned sighed. ―Fine. The arch has to be ready in two weeks. But you‘re welcome to come back any
time.‖
―Hah, don‘t hold your breath,‖ Cynthia said.
―Bitch.‖
―I‘ll, er, let myself out,‖ Ned said.
(Extra Space)
Andras and Cynthia looked over the cliff that rose up out of Mo‘s lake.
―Hey, that‘s my trailer, right down there,‖ Andras said.
Cynthia didn‘t answer. She was taking in the sight of her own unit.
―Your place looks funny,‖ Andras said. ―Like it grew warts.‖ He laughed uproariously.
―Those are my pots,‖ Cynthia said. ―Bebe must have hung them over the trailer.‖
―What for? To catch rain?‖
―Because she loves me,‖ Cynthia whispered. Then, louder: ―She loves me, numbnuts.‖
―Okay, calm down. I didn‘t know that about you people, that‘s all. You like pot, fine.‖
―Pots. And what do you mean, ‗you people‘?‖
―Oh, come on, Cynth. You know as good as me that you‘re not normal.‖
She took off her straw hat and beat him with it. ―And you’re supposed to be normal? You, with the
brain of a wildebeest?‖
―What kind of beast is that?‖
―Oh, forget it,‖ she said, walking back to the truck.
―Ned said some relative of his got cut in half here. There used to be blades.‖
―Duh, it‘s a sawmill.‖
―Still. The bastard got cut in half.‖
―I want to go back,‖ Cynthia said.
Andras picked at his fingernails. ―Yeah. Me, too.‖
―Do you think they‘ll want us back?‖
―I don‘t know. Jazzy was humping that guy pretty good.‖
―Ugh,‖ Cynthia said, throwing back her head. ―Breeders.‖
―I guess it wasn‘t so good with us, huh? You and me, I mean.‖
She was about to say that she‘d had more fun at the dentist‘s, but something in Andras‘ face
stopped her. ―It was fine,‖ she said gently, leaning against him. ―A real adventure.‖
―Only it‘s time to go home.‖
―Yes. If Bebe‘ll have me.‖
―I think she will. You‘re not bad looking.‖
―I left her, Andras. For you.‖
He grinned. ―Well, she can‘t blame you for that, can she?‖ He grabbed his crotch proudly. ―I
mean, if you‘re only going to ride one dick in your life, this is the one.‖
―God help me.‖
―He already did, baby.‖ He stretched luxuriously. ―You‘re talking about the master dong here.
King of the swinging meat. Mister Goodtime.‖
Cynthia opened the door to the truck and got in, picturing Bebe hanging pots on their trailer.
(Extra Space)
When I agreed to write a press release for Katherine‘s fashion show, I didn‘t take Naomi Pearson
into account. But of course, as assistant Features Editor at the Valley Sentinel, she was the person I‘d have
to see.
She‘s young and professional and very pretty, with long dark hair that she‘s probably going to
have to cut soon if she hopes to be taken seriously as a journalist. But right now it‘s nearly waist-length,
shiny as a child‘s, held back by a carved faux-tortoise shell headband. She‘s wearing a blue suit, not good
but respectable, the best she can afford, and worn shoes that she hopes no one will notice.
Her face is nearly perfect, oval-shaped and clear-eyed, with just a smudge of gray eyeshadow on
the lids and some mascara. Pink lipstick. A Dr. Diamond nose that she was born with.
Charlie Nolan‘s ex-girlfriend. The one he left for me.
He was an idiot.
I explain about the show and the good works provided by the Society Of The Arts, which is silly
because I don‘t know anything about it except its pretentious name. She knows it‘s silly.
―The Society Of The Arts sounds like something Mrs. Shin in The Music Man would organize,‖
she says.
I‘m surprised that she‘s even heard of The Music Man, but she‘s very familiar with it, having
played Marian the Librarian in her high school production.
―One Grecian urn,‖ I say, trying to imitate Mrs. Shin.
―Two Grecian urns,‖ Naomi follows, as we curl our arms upward to resemble handles on pottery,
and then laugh immoderately. I like her. For a nanosecond, I think that if my son Ben had lived, I would
have wanted to introduce him to her.
―So the woman who‘s designing the clothes, Babe… She looks at my release. ―Bebe, I‘m sorry.‖
―Bebe Butler,‖ I elucidate. ―She used to be one of the top models in the fashion industry.‖ My
heart aches for Bebe, whom this 23-year-old girl has never heard of.
Naomi taps her chin with her pencil, looking for an angle for a story. ―Is anyone from the fashion
world going to be there?‖ she asks.
I confess I haven‘t alerted the industry mavens about Bebe‘s debut collection in Troutman‘s of
Chattanooga.
―Why don‘t you invite them?‖
―Who?‖
―Women’s Wear, Vogue, Vanity Fair, People.‖ She shrugs. ―Why not?‖
―Well…‖
―Bebe…‖ Naomi Googled Bebe‘s name.
―Beryl,‖ I correct. I spell it for her. ―Bebe‘s her nickname, but she modeled under the name
Beryl.‖
A page comes up. ―Oh, you‘re right,‖ she says. ―There‘s a lot about her. Very impressive.‖ She
takes a note. ―And you mentioned something about the models.‖
I explain about our imperfections. ―Some of us are old, some are handicapped. None of us have
great bodies.‖
Naomi gives me a sideways look. ―Lots of luck,‖ she says.
―I know. It‘s a gamble. Women aren‘t used to seeing clothes the way they‘ll actually look on
them. When we see professional models, we can pretend that‘s how the clothes are going to look on us. But
the point is, they don‘t. That‘s why Bebe‘s making these instead of using what‘s on the rack at
Troutman‘s.‖
―Can you supply me with some pictures?‖
―I… I guess so,‖ I waffle.
―Good.‖ She offers me a bright smile. ―And what about you, Ms. Owens? How do you like living
in the Valley?‖
―You… know me?‖
―Of course. Nothing‘s kept secret for long around here. Actually, I know one of your tenants, Elsie
Nolan.‖
And Charlie, I think, feeling like Jezebel.
―She‘s not a tenant, really,‖ I say. ―More like a…‖
―Squatter,‖ Naomi finishes. ―I know. She‘s a piece of work.‖ She doodles on her note pad. ―I hear
her son lives with her.‖
Her gaze remains resolutely on the doodle, although I doubt that she even recognizes what she‘s
drawing: It‘s a stylized rendition of Charlie.
―Charlie,‖ I say.
She looks up suddenly, blushing. She‘s recognized the doodle. ―Yes.‖ She clears her throat.
―What‘s your new book about?‖ She closes her notebook. She is just making conversation now, not really
interested.
―Them,‖ I say honestly, knowing that my answer won‘t go into her story. ―The people in the
trailer park. Except I‘ve set it back five thousand years or so.‖
―Sounds great,‖ she says, distracted, still flustered, embarrassed at being caught out.
I stand up to leave.
―Don‘t forget the pictures,‖ she says.
(Extra Space)
―This is gorgeous,‖ Ronnie gushed, holding up a headpiece made of organza and pearls. ―It looks
like it‘s from a German opera.‖
―Madge is going to wear it.‖
―The one in the wheelchair?‖
―It‘ll look like a throne when I‘m done. Women in wheelchairs always look as if they‘re trying to
be invisible. I‘m going to make Madge the belle of the ball.‖
―I like this one,‖ Fat Jimmy said, pressing a polka-dot halter dress against his fleshy chest. ―I think
it‘d fit, too.‖
Bebe snatched it away from him. ―That‘s mine,‖ she said.
―I think I should be in the show,‖ Jimmy said. ―Well, why not? I‘m no more horrible looking than
the rest of you.‖
―Next time I‘ll do a menswear line,‖ Bebe said. ―I promise you‘ll be in that.‖
―Ha,‖ Ronnie said. ―You‘ll be lucky if the SOTA ladies don‘t run you out of town on a rail.‖
―It‘s their own fault,‖ Bebe said. ―They abandoned their project, so somebody had to…‖ Her voice
trailed away. Someone was standing in the doorway, a silhouette against the sunlight. Every head turned.
Bebe stood up so fast that her chair crashed on the floor behind her.
―Who‘s that?‖ Ronnie asked.
Ned smiled.
Bebe and Cynthia stood facing each other, their faces both masks of tension. Neither spoke for a
long time. Cynthia raised her hand to touch Bebe‘s face. She blinked, and two streams of tears cut down the
length of her cheeks. ―I‘m sorry,‖ she whispered.
Bebe grabbed her in her big arms and held her as if the closeness of Cynthia‘s body were all that
was keeping her alive. ―Don‘t leave me,‖ she said into her ear. Then she held Cynthia‘s face between her
hands and kissed her.
The sewing group cheered.
―Disgusting,‖ Elsie said.
Cynthia‘s nose was bright red as Bebe introduced her to the others. ―I want to help,‖ she said.
―Can you sew?‖ Elsie demanded.
―I can make pots,‖ Cynthia offered.
―Useless.‖ Elsie shook her head.
―You can take pictures,‖ Ned said. He produced a camera. ―As soon as each outfit is ready, you
can take it to the model and photograph her. Then I‘ll put them together in a brochure.‖
―A catalogue,‖ Cynthia said.
―For the show, and for the Internet,‖ Ned said. ―Who knows? Maybe people will even buy things.‖
―Dibs on the headdress,‖ Ronnie said.
(Extra Space)
Jazzy had not heard Andras come into their trailer, even though he‘d been knocking at the door for
some time.
She was sitting on the floor in the middle of a circle of candles, humming softly to herself. In the
center of the circle was a pentacle she‘d drawn on the threadbare carpet with black eyebrow pencil.
―Baby?‖ Andras asked softly. ―Jazzy, baby, remember me?‖
Jazzy whipped around to face him. Her hair was completely white for nearly an inch before
abruptly changing to a dull black, and hung in a thick tangle. Her face was painted with a ghostly palette of
colors—black-rimmed eyes with a long vertical slash of bright blue from her eyebrows to her cheekbones,
and from beneath her nose to her chin. Her lips were a grotesque shade of fuschia, outlined in black. She
wore no clothes at all, but was covered with every piece of jewelry she owned. Bracelets and bangles
reached up to the tops of her bony arms and ankles, and dozens of necklaces lay heavily on her chest. She
had fastened hundreds of earrings onto a silk cord, which she had draped around her shoulders like a shawl.
―What‘cha doing, Jazzie?‖ Andras whispered, moving slowly toward her.
―She spoke in a high, childlike voice. ―A spell. See, I made you come.‖
―Well, I guess that was a hell of a spell, then.‖ Gently he put his arm around her shoulders.
―Aren‘t you cold, baby?‖ He reached for her bathrobe, trying to adjust it around her, but she slapped him
away.
―No!‖ she shrieked. ―Get out! Get out!‖
―Okay, okay,‖ Andras said, still whispering. ―I just thought you might be cold, that‘s all.‖
She stared in his direction, her eyes unfocused. Andras saw how small and thin she had become,
and pressed his lips together to keep from weeping. ―Hey, I got an idea,‖ he said finally, his voice rasping.
―How‘d you like it if I built you a fire outside? Huh?‖
Her eyes grew big. ―Oooh. Like we used to.‖
―That‘s right. A nice warm toasty fire, that‘s the ticket.‖
―And I‘ll dance.‖
―You sure will, baby.‖ He pulled himself to his feet. ―Now, you just give me a second here—‖
―No!‖ She grabbed his legs. ―Don‘t go!‖ Her fingers dug into the cloth of his jeans.
―I‘ll just be outside... Right there, you can watch—‖
―Don‘t go, Andras!‖ Fat tears ran down her face, streaking it with black lines.
He closed his eyes in anguish. ―Oh, baby,‖ he said, pulling her close to him. ―I‘m staying right
here. Right here, don‘t worry.‖
He buried his face in her hair, and felt her fragile body quivering like a bird‘s. Gently he wrapped
his arm around to envelop her. ―Right here,‖ he said.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Bebe
The show began with a procession of gorgeous men from the health club. Bebe had promised
them that in exchange for an hour of runway modeling, they would be permitted to pass out their business
cards. Every one of them had some business outside the club – massage, personal training, or simply
―services‖, leaving the type of service rendered to the imagination of the client. As the men, dressed in
identical white beachcombers and sandals (straight off the racks at Troutmans‘s), sauntered down the
runway to the beat of Caribbean reggae, a shower of phone numbers fell from the ceiling, where two fans
created a blizzard of commercial messages.
Bebe, as Master of Ceremonies, appeared in a number of startling outfits, beginning with a black
chiffon sheath covered by a red silk duster taken from the lingerie section of Troutman‘s, and a ten-footlong scarf. Over her eyes was a beaded headpiece which had started life as a cheap necklace. Emblazoned
between her collarbones was a vivid pink temporary tattoo covered with glitter.
―Ladies,‖ she cooed into the microphone, ―this is what a size 22 looks like.‖ The audience
cheered.
Liz Petrovsky came out next, wearing a pair of black jeans, a black tee shirt, a pair of high heeled
boots, and a big chunky turquoise necklace. Her hair, beautiful to begin with, had been blown to immense
proportions behind a leather headband. ―This is what high school looks like,‖ she said.
Henya walked out in a billowing tent of a dress in a color of terra cotta that exactly matched the
blush on her cheeks. Before the show Bebe had talked her into cutting her hair into an inch-long cap, then
played up her eyes with more smoky shadow than Henya had worn in her entire life. ―This is what a bighipped, shy black girl looks like,‖ she said, twirling at the end of the runway. ―All grown up!‖ Again the
audience cheered, and continued cheering as Pamela Oglethorpe made her stately way down the runway.
A few of the SOTA women, the ones with money, held their breath. Bunny Oglethorpe, here? But
why hadn‘t she told anyone? She was the Society‘s president! Her presence would have commanded the
rest of the women to participate. They had all shunned the show, and now…
―This,‖ Pamela said, taking off the checked blazer she was wearing to reveal a silk pintucked
tuxedo blouse whose beautiful lines were uninterrupted by the bulge of breasts, ―is what double
mastectomy looks like.‖
The crowd hushed. Then, in a body, applause thundered through the room.
(Extra Space)
Mo was next, scripted with the embarrassing line, ―This is what age fifty looks like.‖ She had
agreed to it because it did not mention her name or her marital status. Bebe‘s original plan had been for
Mo to announce herself as a ―heartbroken divorcee.‖
―The ‗heartbroken‘ part is a kind of joke,‖ Bebe had argued. There are lots of divorced women out
there who want proof that their lives aren‘t going to end with their marriages.‖
―And I‘m supposed to provide that proof?‖ Mo had asked bitterly. She, whose life really had
ended in every way but the physical?
Bebe worked extra hard on Mo‘s presentation, transforming her from a no-nonsense, alwaysdressed-in-black intellectual into a gossamer confection. Her hair was done up with a hairpiece that framed
her face like a crown. Her gown was dove gray silk, cut low in back, high-waisted, and draped across the
bodice. Mo‘s only adornment was a heavy silver toque around her neck. The contrast between the chunky,
almost primitive necklace and the sheer refinement of the gown was startling. Particularly since she was
barefoot.
Bebe had instructed her to wear a pair of cowboy boots—they were supposed to add to the antic
quality of a sprightly middle-aged woman in a gown—but the pair left for her were several sizes too large.
Casting around for another pair of shoes—her own were in the dressing room—she was floundering as the
last model left the runway and Ned, working as Stage Manager, pointed to her. ―You‘re on!‖ he whispered.
From behind her, a pair of hands pushed her onstage. She entered, bent nearly double, arms
windmilling. One of the quicker-thinking health club boys leaped forward to catch her, then twirled her
around expertly, as if her entrance had been carefully choreographed.
―Thank you... so very much,‖ Mo muttered as he spun her through a high arch set up on stage. Mo
kept dancing as her own prerecorded voice intoned through the loudspeaker, ―This is what age fifty looks
like.‖
And what utter mortification feels like, she thought, grinning and dancing her way offstage,
barefoot.
The next model was Elsie, who left her post beside the ten chafing dishes full of food to climb
onto the stage wearing an apron and holding a spatula.
―This is what Grandma looks like,‖ she said, smiling. While the audience cheered anew, Elsie took
off the apron to reveal a pale blue cocktail suit. Her lush white hair gleamed beneath the bright lights.
―Every grandmother of the bride in Tennessee is going to want that dress,‖ Bebe said backstage
beside Mo. ―Elsie‘s a good model. Speaking of which...‖ She slapped Mo‘s arm. ―Good job with the
dancing, old girl.‖
―It wasn‘t dancing, it was lurching,‖ Mo admitted, squinting through the blinding light at the arch
separating the stage from the runway. Although it was hard to see it clearly, it seemed to be the exact Torii
arch she had drawn based on Araiama‘s descriptions. ―Bebe, where...‖
But Bebe was gone, lining up the others.
(Extra Space)
Madge, who had an electric-powered wheelchair, sped onto the runway like a warrior goddess in a
chariot. She wore the Boudicca-style headdress Bebe had fashioned for her and a gown of palest green,
blue, and white chiffon that blew out behind her like clouds in a wind. She moved so fast that people
gasped, but the ramp was constructed to tilt upward at the end so that she halted at the top, then swung
back, reversing the effect of the blowing fabric.
―This is what women whom the world calls ‗disabled‘ look like,‖ she said, her clear voice ringing
through the store. Flashbulbs popped as the audience roared.
Phoebe was next, wearing a handsome turban in shades of green, accented by a peacock feather
that curled around her head and rested on her shoulder. (In the catalogue, the turban was offered in every
color, with a variety of accessories.) Her dress was a pale green sheath topped by a dark green knee-length
vest. The effect was sophisticated and elegant.
―This is what beating cancer looks like,‖ she said.
The audience got to their feet.
(Extra Space)
Phoebe‘s quote was the caption beneath the photo that appeared, along with Madge‘s, Elsie‘s, and
Bebe‘s, in People Magazine under the heading A Fashion Show Like No Other, and the subhead ―Former
model Beryl – now Bebe – Butler reinvents herself as champion of America‘s ‗invisible‘ women.‖
After the People story appeared, Women’s Wear Daily sent a team to interview Bebe in her new
workspace in the Slimline bathing suit factory. Bluefly offered to feature her designs on its website. Within
six months, Bebe and Cynthia would be forced by the volume of Bebe‘s business to move to Atlanta, where
they would live in a 5,000 square foot condo and become the most celebrated party hostesses in the South.
They would be the first to leave the trailer park.
But on that night in September, before any of the endings and farewells that would scatter the
residents of Elysian Fields forever were even contemplated, many things that had been thought dead were
brought back to life.
Mo saw this then. Bebe‘s Life with a capital L had finally thrown open the right door, at least for
some of them.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Ensemble
―Mo! Let‘s go!‖ Ned hissed, waving her toward the others.
Katherine was the last model. ―This is what the Society Of The Arts looks like,‖ she said as
behind her a montage of slides showing SOTA members performing good works in the community came
artfully into view. ―Come join us,‖ Katherine said warmly. ―Be a part of something greater than you
know.‖
As the music swelled, the models walked out on the runway for the finale. Through the lights Mo
could see Charlie in the makeshift sound booth.
There was someone with him. It was Naomi.
(Extra Space)
After the final applause died down, he switched on some light reggae-type dance music, not too
loud, then took off his earphones and pushed away from the console. Naomi looked at him for a moment
without speaking. Charlie rubbed his eyes.
―That was good,‖ Naomi said at last. ―The lighting, the sound. They made the show.‖
Charlie had called in a favor to get a lighting technician, but as the show‘s director, he had been in
charge of the whole production, plus the sound. It had been a rough gig.
―Thanks,‖ he said. He looked at her for the first time since she‘d surprised him by coming up to
the booth. He‘d been afraid to look at her. Afraid of Naomi‘s leveling gaze, her Miss Perfect professional
maturity. Now he saw her, the plain black dress which Naomi‘s beauty made more expensive-looking than
it probably was, the perfect makeup, the dark hair tied into a classic bun.
She used to wear it long and flowing, thick and curly, like a wild living thing spread over her
shoulders, he remembered. Her eyebrows went straight across, giving her face a serious air. He had always
loved that aspect of her. She looked so innocent and perfect, and the gray eyes were baby eyes, but she was
always thinking. Naomi didn‘t joke easily. When she said something, she meant it.
Like when she said she didn‘t want to see Charlie anymore. She‘d meant that.
Charlie cleared his throat, remembering. ―Well, if you got what you wanted, I‘d better clean up
here—‖
―Someone told me that the clothes designer used to be a big-time cover girl. My guess would be
the first one. She was fat, but she could move.‖
Charlie shrugged.
―And that she lives in the same trailer park as your mom.‖
He coiled up his wires. He said nothing.
―I was thinking maybe there‘s a story in it, a then-and-now thing.‖
―You mean showing Bebe living like trailer trash.‖
―Well, yes. Maybe you could get me an interview with her?‖
―Hey,‖ Charlie said softly. ―Don‘t.‖
She looked at him levelly, her gray eyes as alert and direct as a child‘s. ―What do you care what I
write about?‖ she asked. Too casually, he thought.
―I just don‘t want Bebe to get hurt. She‘s a good person. And she doesn‘t want to be in the news
anymore. Not for that. Not for how far she‘s come down in the world.‖
―It wouldn‘t be news,‖ Naomi said, with a slight edge to her voice. ―It would just be a feature in a
local paper.‖
Charlie smiled. ―And if it‘s good enough—which it would be—maybe a wire service will pick it
up, and then, boom, you‘re working for Time Magazine.‖
The gray eyes beneath the straight-across little girl brows were steady. ―Would that be so bad?‖
He sighed. ―It would be for Bebe,‖ he said. ―Look, she‘s been here a long time, and no one
knew—‖
―Then why‘d she do a fashion show?‖ Naomi demanded. ―If she didn‘t want attention, why in
the world would she go on stage?‖ Naomi answered herself. ―I‘ll tell you why. It‘s because she misses that
fifteen minutes of fame. As far as I can tell, she was just another big-haired eighties model—‖
―Look, I‘m asking you to leave it, okay?‖ Charlie nearly shouted. There was a long silence. ―She
did it to help Katherine,‖ he said softly. ―Sometimes people just want to help. They aren‘t thinking about
how famous they‘re going to be, or who‘s going to notice how great they are. They just do things because
people need them, and they want to help.‖
Naomi glared at him in silence, her cheeks blazing, her gray eyes turned to brilliant, angry silver.
―People don‘t need to know that Beryl Butler lives in a trailer park and gives massages to rich
housewives for a living. Show some decency, Naomi.‖
She sucked in her breath, as if he‘d slapped her across the face. ―Pardon me,‖ she said icily. I
certainly wouldn’t want to offend someone of your sterling moral character, she wanted to add, but didn‘t.
―I heard that you moved into the trailer park with a woman. I assumed that was your mother.‖
―But now you think it‘s Bebe?‖ He grinned. ―Sorry, but the only way she‘d have me would be if I
lost a part of my anatomy that I‘ve grown fond of.‖
―So it‘s someone else?‖
He swallowed. ―Naomi...‖
―Don‘t answer. I didn‘t have the right to ask.‖ She picked up her coat—still the gray trenchcoat
she‘d worn for years—and tossed a styrofoam coffee cup into the wastebasket.
The door snicked closed behind her. Charlie exhaled noisily, realizing he‘d been holding his
breath. Then he closed his eyes tight, but he could not obliterate the sight of Naomi‘s silver eyes.
(Extra Space)
―Amazing,‖ Jose said, fluttering around Bebe as if he were her personal dresser. ―Your outfits, the
show, everything—just amazing.‖
―Oh, he thinks everything‘s ‗amazing‘,‖ Ronnie said. ―He just doesn‘t know enough English
words.‖
―That‘s true,‖ Jose responded with no malice whatever. ―There are not enough words in any
language for La Bebe.‖
She was still stunned at the staggering response to the show. Each model had worn three outfits,
including a Slimline bathing suit designed and accessorized by Bebe. Halfway through, the reporter from
People had come backstage requesting an interview. ―I just can‘t believe it,‖ Bebe said.
―Believe it, darling.‖ Jose fiddled with her hair. I tell you, you‘re fabulous.‖
―And we love you,‖ someone added.
Get out of here, Bebe was thinking. Out, out, out... ―Excuse me.‖ She tried to push through the
crowd that had gathered around her.
―Bebe—‖
―No!‖ She raised her hand to her face. It seemed to freeze in mid air as she looked between her
fingers. Cynthia was standing in front of her.
She put her arms around Bebe. ―You okay?‖ she asked.
Bebe nodded. ―I just didn‘t expect…‖ She made a gesture to take in the scene.
―You‘re going to be a star again,‖ Cynthia said.
―Oh, don‘t be… this is…‖ But there were no more words. Because she knew it, too. Her time of
comfortable fallowness was over. She would have the crowds again, the loud, false love, the sense of
belonging that comes with celebrity. She turned to Cynthia. ―Is it good?‖ she asked, frightened.
Cynthia smiled. ―We‘ll just take it one day at a time and see,‖ she said, leading her into the crowd.
―I love you,‖ Bebe whispered, clutching Cynthia‘s hand. ―You‘re the only thing that matters. The
only thing.‖
Cynthia turned to face her. Her eyes were full of tears. Bebe reached out to touch her lips.
―Oh, my,‖ Ronnie said, patting his heart. ―This is what lesbian love looks like.‖
―Will you shut up?‖ Ned snapped, pushing him away exasperatedly. ―Leave them alone, you
guys.‖
―Oh, you guys. How macho, Nedrick.‖
―Get the hell out of here,‖ Ned said.
―Forget him. I think there‘s a bar here.‖
Suddenly oblivious to the crowd of well-wishers, Bebe took Cynthia‘s face in her hands and
kissed her.
(Extra Space)
Katherine saw it, and nearly swallowed her tongue. ―Please, God, no!‖ she gasped, pushing
through the crowd.
―Oh, lighten up,‖ Forrest said, enjoying the phrase. It made him feel youthful and devil-may-care.
Two weeks of living in a tent with Katherine‘s ex-husband had inured Forrest to criticisms about propriety.
―But they can‘t...‖ Katherine warbled. ―They can‘t... just... kiss... like that...‖
A flashbulb went off, and a moment later Naomi and an attendant photographer swept past them
determinedly.
―Oh, God,‖ Katherine choked. ―That’s the picture of my show that‘s going to be in the paper.‖
(Extra Space)
―Miss Butler.... Miss... Bebe!‖ Naomi called, smiling and waving as she pushed through the
crowd. ―Bebe! Over here!‖
Bebe frowned, trapped.
―Naomi Pearson,‖ she said, extending her hand. ―I wrote the feature in the Sentinel.‖
The frown cautiously diminished. ―Oh. Well, thank you.‖
―You got quite a turnout,‖ Naomi said. ―I understand People Magazine is here.‖ Before Bebe
could answer, she went on: ―I‘d like to interview you before them, if you don‘t mind. I mean, the Sentinel‘s
a daily.‖
Bebe nodded. ―Mostly, I‘d like to know what you‘re doing in a trailer park. I mean, considering
the kind of career you once had –‖
―Get away!‖ Cynthia shrieked. It was more or less her normal voice, but it cut through the
murmur of cocktail chatter like a police siren. Suddenly all the conversation within a 50-foot radius ceased.
―She doesn‘t want to talk to you about that, okay?‖
―The questions wouldn‘t be demeaning or distasteful in any –‖
―Leave her alone!‖
Cynthia pulled Bebe backward into the arms of Ned, surrounded by his cronies from General
Grant‘s. To one side of them were Henya, still wearing the copper colored ballgown from the show, and
Richard Davis, holding two drinks. Elsie lumbered toward them, once again wearing her apron and
wielding a spatula. Form the other direction, Forrest and Katherine, with Mo in tow, waded their way
through the press of people. Finally Charlie strode forward and placed himself squarely between Bebe and
Naomi.
―Leave her be,‖ he said.
Naomi held up her hands in defeat. ―All right,‖ she said. ―I‘m sorry. I didn‘t mean to be
insensitive—‖
―Frankly, it‘s hard not to be, with this group of misfits,‖ a woman said from behind Naomi.
It was Victoria Tanner. Her talon-like fingers were clutching her daughter‘s shoulders. ―It‘s just
like a little happy family,‖ she said sourly.
―Look, I‘m not going to pursue this,‖ Naomi said.
―Well, I am.‖ Victoria did not look at Naomi as she spoke. Instead, her attention was focused on
the group surrounding Bebe. ―My daughter is a minor, and you had no right to use her in this show without
my permission.‖
―You gave your permission,‖ Liz said, trying to shake herself free from her mother‘s death grip.
―In writing.‖
―I never—‖
―Yes, you did,‖ Katherine insisted.
―I‘m out of here,‖ Naomi said, withdrawing.
―If you ever paid any attention to me, you‘d have read what you were signing,‖ Liz spat.
―The fingers tightened. ―I‘ll deal with you later,‖ Victoria said, still looking at Katherine. ―You‘re
nothing but perverts, all of you.‖ Her gaze shifted from one face to the next. ―And whatever you‘re doing to
my daughter is going to stop.‖
―I don‘t believe anyone‘s doing anything to your daughter,‖ Pamela Oglethorpe said. Towering
over Victoria, she crossed her arms imperiously over her chest. ―You‘re carrying this too far, Mrs. Tanner.‖
―They‘ve got you,‖ Victoria snapped. ―So they‘ve got SOTA. Very clever. But they don‘t have
the law.‖
―Please, Victoria,‖ Katherine said, entering the fray, ―it‘s got nothing to do with—‖
―No,‖ Victoria said, backing away. ―No, this isn‘t going to fade away. You‘ll see.‖ She shoved Liz
toward the exit. ―There‘s such a thing as right and wrong.‖
―And you are the total embodiment of one of them,‖ Ronnie said to her retreating back. He turned
to his friends. ―Can you believe that queen?‖
Ned waved him down.
When Victoria swept out of the room, Charlie noticed that Naomi was still inside, watching,
thinking. He began to walk toward her, hesitated for a moment, then continued, taking Naomi‘s arm and
leading her outside.
Mo watched in silence.
(Extra Space)
A martini glass appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, in Henya‘s field of vision. In it she saw her
own reflection. It was startling. Henya had never thought of herself as beautiful. Yet here she was in this
glass, distorted as if in a dream, her small, shapely head above a pair of smooth strong shoulders the color
of honey, and beneath them, the expanse of pink-beige silk that was the dress she wore, the most beautiful
garment she had ever worn.
―Are you going to take this, or am I posing for a painting?‖ Richard asked.
Henya jumped, realizing that she‘d been staring at her own reflection. ―I‘m sorry,‖ she said,
relieving him of the martini. ―I guess I was a million miles away.‖
―Bored?‖
―No, not at all,‖ she said quickly, seeing his deflated expression. She took a sip of the unfamiliar
drink, made a face, smiled. ―Actually, this is the most exciting thing I‘ve ever done. Well, except for work
things, of course. I‘m an ICU nurse, and ...‖ She waved the rest of her thought away with an embarrassed
grin. ―What I mean is, I don‘t get to dress up like this very often.‖
―You should,‖ Richard said. ―You look beautiful.‖
Henya had trouble swallowing. Was he being patronizing, this white man with the unfaithful wife,
or just horny?
Her heart began to pound. She backed away, searching for a place to put her glass. Oh, why had
she even accepted the stupid drink? Or talked about such personal things? What did Richard Davis care
what she did for a living or how she felt at parties? He just wanted to take her clothes off. He and his wife
probably did this sort of thing—
―Henya?‖ Richard took the glass from her hand. ―Are you feeling all right?‖
She turned and left, rushing until she reached the outside air, glad for the breeze that was drying
the sweat under her arms.
(Extra Space)
―No! Wait up!‖ Charlie trotted across the parking lot toward Mo. It had rained during the show,
and the blacktop was shining, reflecting the light from the overhead streetlamps. ―You took off your fancy
gown.‖ He was grinning, his feet shifting awkwardly.
Mo felt a twinge of irritation. Lately, she had often felt with Charlie as if she were talking to a
teenager with a 200-word vocabulary. ―That‘s right,‖ she said flatly. She was wearing a pair of wool pants
and a rain jacket. Sensible clothes. She felt embarrassed.
―You look like yourself now,‖ he said, still grinning uncomfortably.
Yes, sensible. Sensible, dull, and ouch, old. Mo had seen the way Charlie and Naomi had looked
at one another—angry, passionate, full. That was it. They were both full to bursting with life and possibility
and unrequited love and unconsummated sex. Full.
Mo, on the other hand, was sensible, fifty, and far, far from being too full. While Charlie and
Naomi were trying to hold back their passion, she was trying to ignite hers. It had caught fire that night in
the woods, but since then, it seemed, everything that had happened between herself and Charlie had been
an attempt to replay that one scene, to rewind the tape back to the good part.
And now here, in the rain-soaked parking lot, she couldn‘t even muster the will to pretend to be
anything other than bored, tired, and cold. ―I need to get home, Charlie,‖ she said.
―Okay.‖ He took a step backward. Then, almost as an afterthought: ―I was just wondering about
the shrine. If you wanted it.‖
―The what?‖
―The shrine. Well, the archway. You know, the thing you guys all walked under onstage.‖
―The... Oh, yes. I‘m sorry for not saying something earlier. It‘s lovely.‖
―That‘s okay,‖ Charlie said, grinning. Andras and Cynthia made it. I just put it up.‖
―It looks exactly like what she... what I wanted. Thank you so much, Charlie.‖
―Hey, no problem.‖ He was still grinning. ―Do you want me to bring it back to the trailer park?‖
―Sure, if you can. That‘d be great.‖
―Where do you want it?‖
She shook her head. ―Anywhere. By the lake would be good. If you come by tomorrow, I‘ll help
you set it up.‖
―Nah, I can take care of it.‖ He rolled a pebble with the toe of his sneaker. ―Don‘t know what
you‘re going to use it for,‖ he said.
―I don‘t, either,‖ Mo said, embarrassed.
―It‘s what you wanted though, right?‖
―Right.‖ Long silence. ―Okay, Charlie. I‘m going to go now.‖
―Sure.‖ A look back at the building. Someone had opened the front door, and music spilled out.
―Want me to come along?‖ he asked. He was pretending to leer, moving his eyebrows up and down. But
there had been a moment‘s hesitation before the offer. A moment of relief before the inevitable denial took
over.
Or maybe he had really wanted to come home with her. She didn‘t know. She didn‘t care.
―Go back inside, Charlie,‖ Mo said. ―The party‘s just getting started.‖
He looked at her for a moment, nodded, then turned and sloshed through the puddles back toward
the music.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Richard
Elsie laid out the paper plates on the table and filled them with spare ribs, mashed potatoes, and
green beans with bacon and tomatoes. This was the moment all her effort had been for. Charlie and
Richard both commented, dutifully but truthfully, on the delights of the meal.
Elsie was in heaven. In fact, she thought, that was exactly what heaven would be for her: cooking
for appreciative men. It was not nearly as satisfying to cook for women who, although more articulate in
their appreciation, were burdened by concerns about fat and starch and sugar and, in Elsie‘s opinion,
generally did not eat enough to truly enjoy a meal. Men, who would clean their plates and sop up the juices
with bread and then hold their bellies as if they were bombs about to burst, were the only true test of a dish.
―Cheesecake for dessert,‖ she announced. Charlie groaned and placed his hands on his belly. It
was the sign Elsie had been looking for. She placed huge wedges in front of the men.
Richard smiled wanly. The poor man, how long had it been since he‘d had a really good meal?
Why, if it weren‘t for Henya‘s good heart, he‘d not have anything to eat at all, what with that hussy of a
wife. Really, you‘d think she‘d be ashamed to death, holding her fancy fashion show while her husband
slept out in a tent. With her boyfriend, no less. and the boyfriend not half as good looking as the husband,
either. She looked him up and down appraisingly.
―Speaking of Henya, how is she?‖ Elsie asked.
Charlie took a huge bite of the cheesecake. ―Who was speaking of Henya?‖ he asked.
―Weren‘t you?‖ Elsie looked surprised.
―No. You must have been thinking about her.‖
―I was not.‖
Charlie shrugged.
―Doesn‘t she usually cook for you?‖ Elsie asked, sitting down next to Richard.
He reddened. ―Not always,‖ he said.
―Is she mad at you?‖
Richard cleared his throat and pushed his plate way. ―I don‘t... Maybe.‖
―What‘d you do?‖ Elsie accused.
―Mom—‖
Richard gave a kind of half laugh to let Charlie know that he didn‘t mind Mrs. Nolan‘s nosy
questions. ―I‘m not really sure,‖ he said. ―At the party after the show I brought her a drink and told her she
looked nice.‖
―Clearly cause for beheading,‖ Charlie said.
―Seriously, I‘ve thought about it, and that‘s all I remember,‖ Richard said. ―There was that blonde
woman saying that Bebe was corrupting her daughter—‖
―Victoria Tanner,‖ Elsie said ominously. ―Yankee bitch.‖ She leaned toward Richard and
whispered, ―Do you think those lesbians are doing something to that young girl?‖
―Mom, quit it,‖ Charlie said. ―That Tanner woman‘s just...‖
―A bitch.‖ Elsie nodded her head. ―Like I said. ―And a Yankee.‖
―She is not a Yankee. She‘s from right here in Beltsville.‖
―Well, she talks like a Yankee.‖
―That doesn‘t mean anything.‖
―She‘s still a bitch.‖
―Yeah, well, whatever. Bebe just let the kid be in the fashion show because it was a nice thing to
do.‖
―And what about Naomi?‖ Elsie asked.
―Er...‖ Charlie waffled. Mrs. Nolan did not provide easy conversation. ―What about her, exactly?‖
―Well, she was there. Maybe they got her, too.‖
― ‗Got her‘? Who?‖
―The lezzies,‖ Elsie said impatiently.
―Oh, for God‘s sake.‖ Charlie thumped the table and all the dishes jumped. ―You never even liked
Naomi.‖
―She was better than some,‖ Elsie said with a shrug.
―Anyway, she‘s not a lesbian. Neither is Liz.‖
―Who?‖
―Liz. The girl.‖
―Oh, I knew that,‖ Elsie said.
―But you thought Naomi was?‖
Elsie looked furtive. ―She left without you, didn‘t she?‖
―And you think that makes her gay?‖
Elsie rolled her eyes in exasperation. ―No, you fool.‖ She raised her chin. Charlie recognized that
his mother was about to pontificate, but it was too late to leave the room. ―She left because she knew
you‘ve been fooling around with another woman,‖ she said pointedly. ―That‘s why.‖
―This time it was Charlie who reddened. ―That‘s enough, Mama,‖ he said quietly.
―One that‘s old enough to be your mother, at that,‖ Elsie continued in a hush.
―That‘s it. I‘m out of here.‖ He took two steps toward the door and vaulted out of it. The door
reverberated from his slamming it behind him.
―Could at least have finished his cheesecake,‖ Elsie grumbled.
Richard slid his chair out. ―Well... er... Maybe I‘d better...‖
―Probably anxious to go over and take a poke at that woman.‖
Richard‘s breath caught. ―What?‖
―Mo,‖ Elsie said, crossing herself. ―Seemed so respectable and all. But you never can tell.‖ She
fixed Richard with a piercing look. ―I suppose you‘re going to go poke someone yourself.‖
―Er… I hadn‘t planned to.‖
―Well, you might as well,‖ Elsie said irritably. ―What with your wife and that setup she‘s got
going. Sinning gone wild, is what it is. This place is a regular den of iniquity. And my boy‘s right in the
thick of it with that dried up old prune.‖ She wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron.
―Yes, well... People are strange, Mrs. Nolan,‖ Richard said lamely.
Elsie pulled out a rumpled tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. ―What can I say? At least
she‘s white,‖ she muttered. ―Oh, don‘t get me wrong. There‘s lots of colored people good as gold. Better
than white, some of them. Take Henya. Give you the shirt off her back.‖
―But you wouldn‘t want your son to sleep with her,‖ Richard said witheringly.
Elsie was impervious. ―To tell the truth, I don‘t think Henya would even have him,‖ she chuckled.
―Why not?‖ Richard wouldn‘t let it go. ―Do you think she‘s gay, too?‖
―Oh, no.‖ Elsie laughed. ―There‘s plenty of them here, that‘s for sure, but Henya isn‘t one of
them. Tell you the truth, I don‘t think she goes either way, if you know what I mean.‖
―No,‖ Richard said truthfully. ―I don‘t know what you mean..‖
―Well, I‘m not one to talk about people, especially people I like, but—‖
―Yeah, but,‖ Richard said. ―But what?‖
―Well, let‘s just say that if Episcopalians had nuns, Henya‘d be one of them.‖
Richard was too taken aback to respond that Episcopalians did have nuns. ―Really? You mean she
just doesn‘t like men?‖
―I don‘t think so. And I can‘t say as I blame her.‖ Elsie examined him for a long moment, during
which Richard checked his teeth and his fly. ―Yes?‖ he asked finally. ―Do you want to tell me something?‖
―I don‘t want to say anything out of turn. Seeing as you‘re a stranger and all.‖
―Is this about Henya?‖ Richard sat back down. ―Because if it is, I‘d like to know.‖
She inhaled thoughtfully. ―Twenty years ago, you wouldn‘t have been able to find a solitary soul
in Beltsville didn‘t know Henya‘s story. Made the papers as far as Nashville. I didn‘t put it together myself
when I met her, on account of she don‘t go by Henrietta anymore. But she‘s the same girl.‖
―What... what did she do?‖
―Not her, bless her heart. She wasn‘t but a little child. No, I‘m sorry to say, it was her mother.
You know how young people today are always calling each other ‗hoes‘? Like the coloreds been saying, I
reckon. Well, Henya‘s mother was a hoe, all right, and no doubt about it.‖
―Is that what made the papers in Nashville?‖ Richard asked skeptically.
―No.‖ Elsie set her mouth. ―It was that she rented out her daughter to any man what wanted her.‖
Richard was silent.
―Poor Henya wasn‘t even a woman yet when it started. She was nine years old when the police got
involved.‖
Richard sat back in his chair, his hand over his mouth.
―Didn‘t nobody know for a long time because Henya and her mother lived in the colored part of
town, even though her mother was white as snow. But afterward, Father Follett and his wife atook her in.
There was lots who wanted to—the stories in the paper was just so pitiful. The priest said there was some
with lots of money wanted the child. But it was Henya herself picked the Folletts. If you knew them, you‘d
understand why, too.
―Oh, there was some talk because the Folletts was white, and there was a black family wanted
Henya, but she done said who she wanted to raise her, and she‘s never said she was sorry about the
decision.‖
Elsie had been washing dishes. Now she turned off the faucet and dried her hands on her apron.
―But as far as men go...‖ She shook her head. ―Some things you just don‘t get over, you know what I
mean?‖
Richard nodded numbly.
―You know why I‘m telling you this?‖
Almost imperceptibly, Richard nodded again.
―All right, then.‖ Elsie turned back to the sink.
Richard walked to the door and opened it. ―Thank you for dinner,‖ he said quietly before letting
himself out.
(Extra Space)
He walked toward the lake. He was too agitated to find a hotel room, and Forrest hadn‘t come
back to the tent. They‘d probably made up, his wife and the choir director. Well, Richard wasn‘t about to
spend the night in the red pup tent while his wife snogged her paramour ten feet away. Goddammit, there
were places in the world where he would be absolutely justified in killing them both.
He sighed and shook out a cigarette. Who was he kidding, he thought. The last time Richard
visited the beloved homestead, he‘d had to get a map from a gas station to find it. A shopping center had
grown up where his shortcut to Route 27 had once been, and he‘d lost his way. It had been four years since
he‘d last set foot in the United States.
Around him, the trees smelled rain-clean, with the underlying scent of fallen leaves decaying into
mulch, and the night was loud with the singing of tree frogs. Occasionally a fish jumped in the lake, or the
woods rustled with the passage of some small animal. Richard had not had the luxury of this much
tranquility for twenty-five years.
There was a Chinese story about a fisherman who had the good fortune to catch a talking carp that
claimed to be the Emperor of all the seas, and promised the man a great reward in exchange for its life.
Upon releasing the fish, the man was invited to climb upon the Emperor‘s back, on which he rode deep into
the ocean. There he experienced delights that no other human had ever known. Then, after spending an
evening in the enchanted underwater kingdom, the fisherman was brought back to land to return to his own
life.
But while he was gone, everything he knew had changed because during that single evening he
had spent with the carp, many decades had passed on land. The man‘s wife and family were all dead, and
the village where he had lived had changed beyond recognition. No one remembered the old man or
believed his strange story.
Richard stuck his hands in his pockets, inhaling the smoke from the cigarette dangling from his
lips.
(Extra Space)
Her name was Ana. Richard had already been in Xi‘an off and on for years when he met her. His
company, Magnetica, was sending him to the remote Yanliang area to explore the hills for natural gas with
magnetic resonating equipment. If the project was successful, Magnetica would get a contract from the
Chinese government to supervise the installation of gas lines throughout the huge province of Shaanxi.
Ana, whose Chinese name was Ai Nuo Ma (roughly translated as ―Serenity‖), was hired as interpreter and
liaison between the American industrialists and the Chinese workers.
This was more difficult than it seemed, as the Chinese in the area where the exploration was to
take place spoke neither Mandarin nor Cantonese, but a dialect known only to the residents of their village.
Ana‘s job was to translate English into Mandarin, which was subsequently translated by another interpreter
into the local tongue. Predictably, the double translation resulted in so much lost time and misinformation
that the project was inexorably grinding to a halt. It might have resulted in weeks of lost time, had not Ana
taken it upon herself to learn the local language and eliminate the second translator.
It hurt Richard to think about her. He had betrayed her in the end, never meaning to, never feeling
anything in his heart for her except love, pure, deep, powerful love.... But he had let her down all the same.
Ana had never known that Richard was already married when he met her. At least she hadn‘t said
anything about it. Sometimes women knew things so far beyond the ken of the men in their lives that their
wisdom could not even be imagined. And Ana had been wise. Even as a young woman—she‘d been in her
early 30‘s when Richard first saw her, although she looked to be barely out of her teens—she had exhibited
a depth of intellect and feeling completely out of sync with her age.
At the time, three years into his journey to the kingdom of the Emperor of the Sea, Richard had
been building his life around Magnetica and the Americans who came into the Xi‘an offices and out of
them again, comforting himself with company-approved prostitutes who carried Magnetica photo I.D.s and
were technically employees of the company.
Ana was like no one Richard had ever known in his life. Although she had never left China, she
was proficient in six Asian languages and three Western ones. Her father had been a professor of
Philosophy at Jiaotong University. His death, and the sudden strain on her large and generally underage
family, had been the impetus for Ana‘s decision to work with the Americans.
Unlike most Chinese of the area, she wore her hair long, now that such frivolities were not deemed
counterrevolutionary. She grew it for her father, she explained, who was fond of ancient ways, although
most of the time she pulled it back in a severe knot at the nape of her neck. The first time they‘d made love,
Richard had marveled at the spill of shiny waist-length hair falling down Ana‘s back like a fragrant black
river.
They had been married in a traditional Chinese manner that took place over several days and
included astrological prognostications, a tea ceremony, a go-between, and numerous visits to relatives. Her
family, though reluctant to accept a red-haired ex-football player with blue eyes and big feet, nevertheless
provided a wedding feast fit for a king.
Richard had often wondered what would have happened if he had told Ana that their marriage was
meaningless in the eyes of his government, and even the company for which he worked. Certainly it had
been unfair to her. If he had died, either in China or the U.S., Ana would not have been entitled to a cent of
his insurance or his pension. She would probably not even have been informed of the event.
That was all moot now, though. Ana had been been the one to die first, suddenly, unexpectedly, of
a brain aneurysm at the age of 44. It was the same thing that had killed her father, at the same age. It had
also been the event that had triggered Richard‘s premature retirement from Magnetica.
Had Ana known Richard‘s secret? After her death, Richard had nearly gone insane with the
question. His Chinese wife had been so brilliant, so intuitive, that she must have seen what a lying, faithless
shit of a man she had entrusted with her life.
But she had never spoken of it.
Nor had Katherine, although Richard was fairly certain that Katherine had never even questioned
the fact that her husband had been gone for twenty-five years. No, Katherine was too busy hiding her own
skeletons to be concerned with his.
How long had she been sleeping with the music teacher? From the beginning? In a way, Richard
hoped so. He had married Katherine and then, for all intents and purposes, abandoned her within the first
year of their marriage. He had never asked her if she‘d wanted children. Katherine had lived alone for most
of her life, and he had not even asked her consent.
And, to be truthful, Forrest was a good enough guy. Richard couldn‘t really in good conscience
hold it against Forrest that he had taken Katherine from him. True, it was surprising that she had been
willing to run off to an abandoned trailer court with a guy who earned less than fifty thousand a year—
Katherine had always appeared to be the quintessence of high-maintenance conventionality—but that just
went to show how little Richard had actually known her.
In the end, all he really understood about Katherine was that she was every bit as cowardly as he
was, or else one of them, at some point during the past three decades, would have told the other about the
people they loved.
And now it had come to this: Forced retirement, due to what his company had considered insanity,
in a country he no longer considered his own, married to a woman he had never known, whose lover was
his only friend. A sorry state of affairs.
The worst of it, though, was that he didn‘t even care. He didn‘t care about anything. His life had
swept by like a summer breeze—sometimes he could still feel Ana‘s hair lying like a swath of silk across
his chest—and now it was over. Winter was coming, and he didn‘t care.
He picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could in the direction of the lake. The moon
overhead was no more than a sliver, but it reflected in a long brilliant line across the water. The rock
whooshed through the air, then landed far away with an innocent plop that belied the ferocity with which it
had been thrown.
―Oh,‖ someone said. It was more an involuntary grunt than a word. Bebe was sitting on the
ground, practically at Richard‘s feet. They both gasped at the same time.
―Er, sorry,‖ he said lamely. ―Didn‘t see you.‖
Bebe snorted loudly and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. She‘d been crying. Her hair,
which had been so beautiful for the fashion show, looked like a sodden bird‘s nest, and her makeup ran
down her face in grotesque black streaks. She was wearing a bathrobe.
―Been swimming?‖ Richard asked, not caring what the answer was.
―Yeah.‖ Bebe sniffed again and shambled to her feet.
―You don‘t have to get up,‖ Richard said. ―I‘m just taking a walk.‖
―S‘okay.‖ Her voice was hoarse. ―You‘re Katherine‘s husband, aren‘t you?‖
Richard took a final drag of his cigarette and ground it underfoot. ―Weird, huh?‖
―Everything about life is weird,‖ Bebe said, moving off into the darkness. ―Every fucking thing.‖
(Extra Space)
She walked, shivering, back to the trailer. The moon followed her, cutting a line of light just
beyond the farthest point she could see.
―Been skinny dipping again?‖
Bebe looked up. Cynthia was leaning against the door of their trailer. The moonlight was in her
hair, as if it had gotten tangled there. ―I‘m sorry I left,‖ she said. ―I just couldn‘t take the crowds.‖
―I understand,‖ Cynthia said.
―Thanks for looking after me.‖
―No problemo,‖ Cynthia said, smiling.
―God, you‘re even talking like Andras now.‖
Cynthia smiled. ―Sorry.‖
―When‘d you get back?‖
―Couple of hours ago.‖
―You‘ve been waiting here since then?‖
―Right here,‖ Cynthia said.
Bebe rubbed her arms. ―You didn‘t have to wait up.‖
―I know.‖
Bebe stumbled toward her as Cynthia held out her arms and caught her. She could smell the lake
in Bebe‘s hair as the sweet, responsive flesh of her body nearly enveloped her.
―I don‘t know how I‘m going to handle it,‖ Bebe said, her nose running. ―The people, the
questions. The attention. Maybe I want it. I don‘t even know.‖
―Nobody knows the future,‖ Cynthia said. She wiped her eyes. ―Maybe you‘ll get tired of me.
There‘ll be more interesting partners to choose from.‖
―Like who?‖
Cynthia shrugged. ―Like the Contessa.‖
Bebe stared at her, amused. ―Cynthia –‖
She pressed her fingers against Bebe‘s lips. ―Welcome home,‖ she said.
(Extra Space)
It was after midnight when Richard knocked on Henya‘s door. She looked at him from behind the
screen door, silent, expressionless. She was scrubbed clean, wearing a blue plaid robe over sensible cotton
pajamas. A cooking show was on the television.
―I‘m sorry to bother you,‖ Richard said gruffly. Henya didn‘t answer. He cleared his throat. ―I
just wanted to say... well.. I might be moving on, that‘s all. I didn‘t want to leave without saying goodbye.‖
She inclined her head to one side, frowning, waiting. There was a long silence. ―Is that all?‖ she
asked softly.
―Uh, yeah. Sorry. About bothering you. It‘s late.‖ He looked at his watch. ―Ouch. Sorry.‖ He
backed away, almost fell off her front step, caught his balance, then turned back around to face her.
―Look,‖ he said, ―there‘s something I need to tell you.‖
Henya said nothing.
―I have two sons. One works in Singapore. He‘s an engineer. The other one‘s a junior at UCLA.
Their mother is—was—Chinese. She died two years ago. Katherine never knew about her. She‘s in love
with Forrest McCormick. I‘m glad. I wasn‘t a good husband to her. I miss China. That‘s what... what...‖ He
burst into loud, wracking sobs, his shoulders shaking, the heat from his body visible against the cold night
sky.
Henya let him cry until he was finished, his face buried in his hands, his nose running messily.
Then she opened the screen door. ―Would you like a cup of tea?‖ she offered.
Part VI
Mabon
September 22
The autumnal equinox. The second and final harvest. Any food that ripens after this time belongs
to the spirits. This is the old age of the year, beginning on the day when the hours of darkness match the
hours of light. From now on, the darkness will grow; the Goddess must prepare to depart.
Chapter Forty
Mo
The page was blank. Still blank. It had been nearly three months since I had written anything,
and that had been a half-hearted spate of half-starts. I read over my last pages. Intellectual exercises, not
worth reading. You couldn‘t force much in a novel. In nonfiction, you could get by with some uninspired
pages if your facts were right, but not in a novel.
The screen saver appeared, cows in a meadow, with ―Moo‖ appearing at random in comic book
bubbles above their heads. I cupped one hand in the other, and noticed that it was shaking.
I was panicking. Everyone, including my publishers, believed that Desmond had written all the
books under our two names and, by not being able to finish a decent book on my own, I had been unable to
prove them wrong.
But why? That was the eternal question. I had never had trouble writing while Desmond and I
were together. Was it that I needed – actually needed, like some insecure schoolgirl – to write for someone?
For Desmond? Had pleasing him been so important that even my work had been for him?
Then again, I hadn‘t pleased him much, after all, had I, no matter how hard I‘d tried. No, it had
taken Toni to do that. Phoni Toni Baloni, who was almost as young as I had been when I‘d first met
Desmond.
(Extra Space)
―Daydreaming?‖ Charlie leaned over and kissed my neck.
It startled me. I suppose I should have been happy that I had him in my life. After all, he was
proof that I was still desirable, still young enough to attract a young man for more than the span of a
drunken party. I was Moving On. I was a Modern Woman. I was showing the world that I could Have It
All.
Still, all I felt was annoyance.
―You okay?‖
I didn‘t answer. What would he know about what I was going through? He didn‘t have a clue
how it felt to need to work, every bit as much as I needed to breathe. Charlie had spent his entire adult
life—all eleven years of it—looking for ways to get out of working.
―Mo?‖
―I‘m fine!‖ I said, disliking the sound of my own voice.
―Hey, just asking.‖ He put on his jacket. ―Got a gig.‖ A pause. ―You interested in coming? The
band‘s cool. They wouldn‘t mind if you sat with me.‖
―I‘d rather work,‖ I said, not meeting his eyes. It was the truth. I‘d rather work than be exposed
to the scrutiny of a twentysomething rock band to whom Charlie Nolan was an old man. I‘d rather work
than do anything else. So why wasn‘t I? ―Thanks anyway,‖ I added. ―Have a good time.‖
―Oh, I will,‖ Charlie said, in a tone of voice that sounded like a threat.
So he would meet a woman tonight, I thought. And get high and have sex with her...
The door closed behind him.
...Just like Desmond and Toni.
(Extra Space)
How long had they been at it before they‘d mustered the courtesy to tell me? I‘d never guessed. I
thought, no, I knew, that Desmond had loved me. Only me. In all his life, I was the only one he‘d truly
loved.
And why wouldn‘t he? I‘d given him back everything he had lost, youth, fame, power. My work
had brought back to life the career that had flatlined after the second Hamish book. My work, under his
name. What did it matter who got the credit? That‘s what I‘d told myself. We were Nick and Nora, Scott
and Zelda, Pat and Mike. Our lives were our work, our masterpieces; I didn‘t need a squib in People
magazine to know I mattered.
How long?
I choked, suddenly exploding with tears. Why had I done such a stupid, childish, self-destructive
thing as to give a man something that I‘d made with my soul? Something I could never get back? Why?
To prove that I was worthy of him?
All right, yes. I‘d wanted to be worthy.
And what about me had Desmond deemed worthy, aside from the income I‘d generated with the
books I‘d written under his name? Had my company been worth his while? My kindness, my willingness
to put myself aside to focus on him? Had my cooking, my cleaning, my organizing of our social life been
worthy of his love? Had my silence during his foul moods, my acceptance of his drinking, my forgiveness
of his infidelity? Had any of these qualities made me worthy in Desmond‘s eyes? Or were they all relegated
to some closed room in my past, a room labeled Broken Parts?
The goose, without the golden eggs. A water-stained photograph of a young woman full of
promise. A cracked receptacle of used-up self esteem. All the ingredients for creating a bitter, vengeful
Frankenstein of a woman, I thought. If this were a novel, this would be the moment when my protagonist,
Mo, flipped out, went on a wild and destructive spree, sought out her altogether too charming ex-husband
and put a bullet through his head, found a clever way to destroy the career of Desmond‘s young new wife.
Mo‘s wrath would be a thing of beauty, with the power and passion of an atomic explosion. Readers would
root for her, would cheer that she had grown a pair and found her true self at last.
Or else she would be regarded the way Betty Broderick had, or Jean Harris, women despised for
their weakness and self-pity, wallowing in sour grapes. All the brittle, cold women in detective novels had
been deeply wounded by someone or other, and no one cared about them. The wounded woman (how
much had she suffered?) was almost always either a minor character or the villain.
No, I didn‘t want to be either avenging angel or tragic heroine. I just wanted the goose to lay
again.
I looked at the blank screen of my computer, at the notebooks filled with fits and starts and dead
ends. It was gone. I had needed Desmond to write, to write for and about. Flushed with shame, I realized
that I had needed his approval in order to write at all, and needed his love to have something to write about.
Desmond. It had always been about Desmond.
And Desmond had moved on.
(Extra Space)
The phrase ―move on‖ must have been coined by a man. It had that sanitary, corporate sound, like
the efficient, mechanical spike in an abattoir. It went into the skull cleanly, paralyzing the brains of the
animals who, scenting death, bleated and screamed in terror. Women ended marriages with years of tears
behind them, stockpiles of bitter recriminations and examples of how they had been wronged. As a group,
they were eminently reasonable in their finger pointing: This (and this, and this, too) was what you did. Do
you understand why I’m so angry, why I hate myself for loving you?
Men are different. They do not accuse. They do not weep with frustration and rage. They just
move on. Let‘s move on. We‘ve got to move on, babe. Believe me, it really would be for the best if we
moved on.
Desmond and Toni had moved on. I had just shut down.
And Charlie? What about him? Was he supposed to be the reward, the younger man who found
the sad-but-wise woman still desirable at fifty? Wasn‘t that supposed to be the happy ending?
Charlie. I shook my head. What the hell was I doing? I didn‘t want an affair, particularly the sort
of admiring pity that constituted this one. Although he did not admit it, I was certain that Charlie was
constantly having to defend his liaison with me, not least of all to himself.
And why? We didn‘t even love each other. We were just two lonely people trapped in a pocket of
time, trying to believe that feelings and reality were the same thing. I didn‘t want to make a life with
Charlie. I didn‘t want to start over. I didn‘t want to forget the past. I didn‘t want to move on.
I just wanted to find my way.
(Extra Space)
I stood up, walked to the patio doors, leaned my head against the cool glass. It was still warm
summer in the South, despite the calendar date. At Cedarbrook, the trees would already be changing color,
and blankets would be hauled out at bedtime.
That was a million years ago, I realized. My attempt at having a life, a family, a place where I
belonged.
A tribe. That was what I had longed for all my life. A tribe, like the one Araiama had led and then
lost along with her name, Snake Finder. What happened when you lost everything you were? When there
was nothing you cared about anymore, when all your memories were bitter, and your heart closed up to the
point where even God was no longer welcome in it?
I gasped suddenly, rubbing at the glass where my breath had fogged it. There, by the lake…
I stepped outside. Awkwardly, slipping into garden clogs and then stumbling over the hilly land, I
made her way toward it, the thing that stood out so prominently against the early morning skyline and yet
somehow belonged to it perfectly: The Torii arch from the fashion show, hung now with strips of leather
and beads and birds‘ feathers.
―Your shrine,‖ I whispered, and the lake rippled with the late September breeze, laughing and
grateful.
Chapter Forty One
Araiama
It was a land of vipers, a land of Men.
I had come to it hoping that I might be offered food and shelter for the night in exchange for
whatever I might offer—stories, fortune telling, news of other settlements where I had visited during my
travels. During the course of my journey, the languages spoken at each village diverged more and more
from those I knew, yet I was usually able to make myself understood, either through gestures or song.
But this was unlike any village I had ever encountered.
It was little more than a military camp, really, with carts filled with supplies moving constantly on
a deeply rutted road, headed for a tower in the distance. There were few men except for the very old
and the very young, and the women, silent and dirty-faced, seemed to inhabit the dark places of the
settlement, venturing suspiciously into doorways and shadows, clutching their ragged, pinched-looking
children.
What a difference from the world of Snake Finder, where women were the keepers of Spirit,
and every home reflected the taste of its mistress. Our men were happy to live in light, clean places
kept by beautiful women who respected themselves and the Goddess’ good earth. Here, on the other
hand, was a world turned topsy-turvy, where men behaved like beasts and women like prey.
I was not greeted by anyone, despite the respectful bow I offered to all who crossed my path.
Eventually, in the approximate center of the village, I saw that a number of people were congregated in
a sunless stone building that was shaped like a mound, or a tomb. Inside, men—holy men, I surmised,
judging from their ornate garments—murmured incantations in a rough, unfamiliar language as they cut
the throat of a young kid, still of an age to be suckling. Oh, I thought my heart would break, hearing its
small cry before its pointless death! I looked to the women, who occupied the sides and rear of the
building, but their dull-eyed countenances revealed no compassion for the little beast at all. They were,
I realized, just as helpless as the sacrificial goat. Somehow, these women had lost the Goddess’
greatest gift to them, their innate knowledge of the sacred.
Over the spilled blood of the kid the holy men poured wine out of the same vessel from which
they drank, until the dark, close space was filled with the stench of their acrid breath and the thickening
blood of the tiny lifeless animal.
I slipped away, feeling as if I were about to swoon or vomit. Outside, the sun slipped behind a
bank of dark clouds. The wind, heavy and thick, the wind before a storm, carried the scent of
something great and distant, something I had never before known.
It was water. I knew the smell of water. But this was different. This was wild water, still, deep,
eternal. This, I was to learn later and with great intimacy, was the sea.
(Extra Space)
I followed the scent out of the village, toward the tower. That may have been a mistake, but I
saw no sense in taking any other course. There were no deep woods in which to hide, and in any event,
everyone in the village had already seen me. Chances were, I would continue to be ignored. If not, an
old woman on foot would be easy to find no matter which direction she took.
It was on this road, about a half mile from the tower, that I was apprehended. Two armed
soldiers crossed their swords in front of me, then bound my hands behind my back with rope and
roughly pushed me in the direction of the tower.
I was reminded of my parleys with the barbarians who had killed my acolytes those years ago.
Those men, too, had tried to demonstrate their power by shoving me and causing me to stumble as I
walked. I resisted then, slapping at them and struggling to hold my regal head high.
How amusing my pride seemed to me now, to be squabbling with those young soldiers who
were still exploring their faces for a growth of beard. This time I walked at my own pace, saying nothing
when they struck me or kicked at my slow legs. Humility is the gift of old age.
In time, the boys tired of beating me and eventually slowed to my pace, talking and joking with
one another as we made our leisurely way through the sticky, humid, thunder-heavy air. Our
destination was a military settlement ( So this is where the men of the village are, I remember thinking).
Surrounding the central tower were a series of small huts built in the same mound-shape as the
buildings of the civilian village.
I was taken to the entrance to one of the stone mounds and told, through a series of
threatening gestures, to wait. Eventually I was pushed inside, my head forcibly lowered to the ground.
When it was permitted to be raised again, I found myself kneeling before a man of middle years, with a
face that had once been handsome, with intelligent eyes.
He spoke briefly in the same tongue used by the soldiers—a language which, to my ears,
sounded like rocks grinding together. When he saw that I could not understand him, he looked away in
irritation for a moment before barking an order at the youngest of the guards, who quickly prodded me
to my feet and pushed me back outside. This time we went to what was evidently their prison, a huge
cage made of green branches from which spilled a multitude of different languages. Behind the cage
rose the tower. It was a structure of wood and stone, with a parapet surrounding it near its top. On
the parapet walked two sentries armed with spears.
With a swat of his black sword against the bars of the cage, the soldier accompanying me
commanded its inhabitants into silence. Then he said something to me which I did not understand until
he pointed to his own mouth and shouted, making a show of moving his mouth. I understood. He
wanted me to speak, probably to determine where I belonged in this dormitory of captives.
I obliged him by singing one of the songs which the women of my land—Snake Finder’s land,
now long deserted—used to sing while shearing the coats of mountain goats in spring. It is a wild song,
with its high, wailing notes as enigmatic and fierce as those mountains themselves.
When I was finished, some of the prisoners laughed uncomfortably. Freedom is a far country
for those who do not own it, and its sound is unmistakable. Most only listened, themselves silent. Some
looked as if they were about to weep. This seemed to be a land without music; my song may have
reminded these prisoners of better times, in better places.
The guard cuffed me on the side of my head, and I lost my balance and tumbled to the ground.
The prisoners themselves helped to right me, stretching their arms through the bars of the cage.
―Mama,‖ one of them said. The guard poked his sword at him, but missed and did not try
again. The prisoner who had spoken was a big man, or had been before near-starvation had left the
skin hanging off his large frame. A ragged creature, the man nonetheless still retained a certain vitality
in his blue eyes that seemed to shine from his big, round head. Backing away from the reach of the
guard’s sword, he began to sing also, perhaps in response to my own song, a tune that sounded like a
lullaby. His voice, which was extraordinary, seemed odd coming as it did from so loutish a face. To my
ears it sounded like the call of the Goddess herself, water in a desert, shade in the midst of a burning
sun.
When he finished, I said, ―Thank you,‖ and attempted a bow as the guard yanked me
backward.
The sky had been darkening rapidly and steadily ever since my arrival at the camp, and the still
air was crackling with electricity. There was going to be a storm, and it was clear—at least to me—that
the storm would be sudden and severe. It was why the guards were irritable and the prisoners restless.
With the first drops of rain, I knew, the atmosphere would sweeten and I would be placed inside the
cage with the other prisoners. I might, I thought, even be given something to eat. I no longer cared if I
was slave or free, beaten or ignored, living or dead. Let these boy soldiers do whatever they like, I
thought. They are no happier in this forsaken place than those they have conquered and imprisoned.
But the Goddess was not done with me. Perhaps it was the song I sang. I may have offended
her by reminding myself of a time before my transgression; of forgetting, however briefly, my
unpardonable sin and the curse upon myself which would take a thousand lifetimes to expiate. For in
the same instant that the guard pulled me away from the prisoners’ cage, halfway through my greedy
thought about being fed, while the man with the beautiful voice was simultaneously closing his mouth
and opening his eyes and a woman to his right was clutching at the hem of my skirt, in that instant a great
golden spider of lightning crawled across the sky and shot a bolt straight into the guard’s tower.
(Extra Space)
A puff of smoke rose into the sky as the structure cracked and seemed to fold in half as the
young guard looked on, dumbstruck. The soldiers on the parapet tumbled off, shrieking, as the tower
continued to collapse as if in slow motion, its heart a red flame, crushing the fallen soldiers in a heap of
timber and stone.
The prisoners were at first silent, awestruck and motionless, while the tower fell and burned
around the two dead guards. Then the rain began to fall in a torrent, and the inmates burst into a
cacophony of shrieks and shouts in a dozen strange tongues.
The woman who had been grasping my skirt suddenly released it as if my garment had caught
fire, and formed her fingers into the sign of the Evil Eye. Within seconds everyone had turned away
from the spectacle of the fallen tower, which now hissed and smoked in the pelting rain, and toward me.
The guard who had been holding me let go of my arm. The expression on his face was one of unbridled
fear.
The prisoners roared, shaking the living branches that made up the bars of their cage until it
seemed that the still-leafy trunks of the saplings used would uproot like carrots being pulled from the
ground. They were all looking at me, every last one of them, their hands making ancient gestures of
placation, protection, and even supplication. Several of them fell to their knees onto the foul floor of
the cage, their arms extended in my direction.
I was stupefied. They believed that I had caused the lightning to strike the tower!
Clearly, the guard with me was of the same superstitious mindset. He shoved me, first toward
the cage and then, apparently fearing another debacle from me, dragged me back to the commander’s
hut.
The commander was already emerging into the rain, flinching at the cold water pouring into his
collar. He shouted at the guard who was holding me, as he was the closest soldier to him. The guard
shouted back in a torrent of frightened-sounding speech, pushing me in front of him. He’s telling his
boss that I caused the tower to be struck, I imagined, and waited for the commander’s response.
His face a mask of sheer disgust, the commander flung his hand at me, as if he were telling the
guard that if I had destroyed the tower, then I should be gotten rid of. At least that is what I might have
said had I been in his place.
But the young guard was petrified. I could feel his hands shaking even as they held my arm
tightly enough to leave bruises where each of his fingers were pressing into my flesh. Instead of obeying
the commander at once he babbled, gesticulating toward the prisoners with his free hand.
They were all on their knees now, keening a low, eerie song without words. The song was
oddly reminiscent of the beautiful tune sung by the big man—perhaps he had begun it—but it was more
simple, only three notes sung to a single syllable, O, the universal acknowledgment of death.
I understood. They expected the soldiers to kill me. I was to die, and then avenge my
executioners with the same terrible magic that had brought down the watchtower. Immediately I fell to
my knees in front of the commander. The movement was so sudden that the young guard nearly
toppled over into the mud outside the hut. There, kneeling, I bared my neck, inviting the commander’s
sword.
Give them their martyr, I thought. Dying on the blade of a sword was as good a way as any, I
supposed, and quicker than most. The prisoners would get some drama, the garrison commander would
have an outlet for his anger at the fallen tower and the loss of two of his men, and I would, at last, be
done with this wretched life.
He unsheathed his sword. As he approached, the prisoners set up a wail, beating against the
green wood of their cage.
They could break through that. The thought came to me a half-moment before it happened.
The commander’s sword swooped up and then hesitated. Was he having second thoughts
about killing me, or had the cage already begun to come apart? Perhaps the first signs that the cage
was breaking was what put the idea in my head in the first place, although later the prisoners would
claim, naturally, that it was I who had caused those green branches to snap loose, just as I had caused
the lightning to strike the tower.
Whatever the case, the commander, his sword still drawn, and the guard assigned to me both
rushed toward the prisoners who were spilling out of their rapidly disassembling pen like potatoes from
a bag, falling over one another, rolling along the ground, then rising on wobbly feet with rocks in their
hands, shouting in triumph. The fire, once nearly extinguished by a group of conscientious soldiers,
now began to grow and spread as those soldiers turned their attention to the escaping prisoners.
Most of the captives were run through with swords before they could even get out of the pile
of branches that had been their jail. The commander was applying himself arduously to this task. The
others, too, seemed to know without being told that the quelling of this uprising was the main order of
business—so much so that no one seemed to be paying any attention anymore to the watchtower fire,
which had been growing steadily in the lessening rain since the firefighters had abandoned it.
While the soldiers were busy following their commander in killing the prisoners who had not yet
escaped, those who had were arming themselves with whatever weapons they could improvise. By the
time the soldiers turned away from the trapped prisoners to address the escapees, the battle was
already in progress. Some of the prisoners were fighting with pieces of flaming wood from the tower.
Others wielded swords from fallen soldiers, or made do with pieces of stone or mortar. Some were
simply fleeing wildly in any direction they could, screaming like banshees even though the sound drew
attention to themselves. I wanted to close my eyes to it, but battle is more than an experience of sight.
The taste of the smoke in the air, acrid and sooty, burned my mouth. The sound of men screaming in
pain was everywhere. The smell of blood and smoke lay thick above the ground, rising to blind us all.
Death. Again. And I, again, in the middle of it. Were these people dying now, massacred at
the points of their captors’ swords, because they had trusted me to deliver them from death? If so,
Goddess, your mockery of me is too cruel to bear.
(Extra Space)
Mo closed her eyes with relief. ―Thank you,‖ she whispered. Araiama had come back.
Was it the shrine? Of course it was, she thought. Araiama had wanted a shrine, and now that she had it, she
was talking to Mo again. She grabbed an atlas. From the vague geographical clues Araiama had given, Mo
pieced together a guess at the priestess‘ itinerary. Beginning somewhere in Middle Europe—what would
currently be Slovakia or Hungary – she had traveled into the Basque country between France and Spain,
there encountering some precursor of the Vandals or the Gauls — early Celtic warriors of a tribe who may
have believed in a male god and a patriarchal society. These were the men who had slaughtered the young
women in Araiama‘s care.
So now she would be... where? Portugal? Araiama wrote that she had reached the end of the
world, next to a vast sea. If it were Portugal, she would have been standing on the western shore of the
Atlantic ocean. And from there…
(Retrieve my shrine)
Of course.
With a frisson of excitement, Mo turned back to the keyboard.
Did you come by ship to America? she typed.
Yes, Araiama replied. A war ship.
A war ship? But that made no sense. How would an army allow someone like Araiama – an old
woman, and a prisoner, at that, on a war ship? Unless… Mo felt her hands trembling.
Could it have been a slave ship?
I suppose so. I could almost see her shrugging with indifference.
But slaves…back then? This all occurred in distant prehistory, long before even the Vikings
ostensibly stumbled onto the North American continent, certainly before Columbus mistook the Bahamas
for India, millennia before the Pilgrims arrived. Was it a slave ship? Or was Araiama correct about it being
a vessel of war?
I turned away from the road that had brought me to this wasteland. Ahead of me, the sea
stretched in the distance like a vast, shimmering sky that had fallen to earth. I gasped in astonishment.
Never had I seen anything so beautiful, so full of wonders and possibility.
I had been named for Mari, the goddess of the sea, although no living person of my tribe had
ever seen it. Once, according to legend, a medicine woman had journeyed to a far place where the
people of that land worshipped the sea goddess. In Mari’s name, these people gave the medicine
woman knowledge about snakes, and how to follow the snakes to find one’s way home. In time, the
medicine woman did come home, back to our tribe carrying a snake across her shoulders. Afterward, all
medicine women were taught the healing and mystical values of snakes, and all were given the name
Mari, after the goddess who was forever after the ruling deity of our tribe.
A hand clapped me on the shoulder. I would not have been surprised—not at all—if in the next
moment I’d felt the cold sting of a sword piercing my flesh, but it was not a soldier who stopped me.
―Mama,‖ he said, urging me to follow him. It was the big prisoner who had sung to me in
response to my own song before any of this had happened. His way of addressing me, ―Mama,‖
sounded comical given the man’s courtly manner, but I suppose he was trying to communicate a certain
respect he felt was appropriate for a woman of my advanced years, while assuming that I would not
understand anything else he could say in his native tongue. I nodded in what I believed to be a
courteous manner while trying to extricate myself from his iron grip, but he seemed determined to hang
onto me. He propelled me rather urgently in another direction, speaking softly all the while and
bobbing his head, as if apologizing for having to strongarm me. He needn’t have worried. It made no
great difference to me whether I walked away from the battle or back into it. Sensing his hurry, though, I
sped along as quickly as I could.
We circled along the perimeter of the fighting, right into the sea itself. The water here was
deep, dropping off from a shoreline of boulders. A short pier jutted out from the land. At the end of it
was a large boat with a sail, a warship from the look of it, although I had never seen such a vessel before.
Between the low pall of smoke and the drizzling rain, the fracas at the garrison was no longer
visible from here. Even the furious din of fighting was muffled and faraway-sounding. Through the
smoke I could see, dimly, another pier with another ship ready. Were there many? I wondered. But
more than that: Why had I been brought here?
The big man pulled me along the pier, looking over his shoulder. Then he lifted me into the
boat. My heart sank. So this was to be the plan, then: The prisoners, perhaps led by this man,
thought to escape in a ship—a warship owned by an army, with other ships docked and set to sail—and
they had invited me to share their doomed journey with them.
On board, the big man led me to a narrow stairwell. As I was descending, a stocky man with a
shoulder of beef slung over his back shouted behind me as he shoved me aside. He was greeted by a
chorus of cheers from the people waiting in the hold below. The man dumped the meat on the floor, in
the middle of a great pile of provisions apparently stolen from the garrison. With a laugh, he wiped his
hands on the front of his tunic. It was the only garment he wore, as if he had been a slave even before his
capture. He motioned with his chin toward the shadows. A few women, obeying his silent command,
picked up the dirt-encrusted haunch and scuttled away with it.
Several more former prisoners had come aboard since I had. In the small, enclosed area of the
hold, they smelled like cattle. One of the women pulled at my skirt and gestured toward a corner of the
hold, perhaps offering me a berth there, but I could not bear the stench and darkness of the place, and
went back above decks. If I was going to die, which I almost certainly was, it was nevertheless not going
to be in a dark hole rife with the stench of unwashed bodies and rotting meat.
The rain had worsened since I’d boarded the ship, which now heaved dangerously in the water.
As soon as I reached the deck, a bolt of lightning struck the water nearby, turning it bright blue and
spreading out in concentric circles. The ship, still in dock, was rising and falling dramatically with the
swell of the waves.
My protector, the big man who called me Mama, was shouting to a number of men who were
scrambling to take places behind the oars. I counted sixteen, eight on each side. They all looked to him,
these men who had all been starved until their skin hung loose on their bones. My friend shouted
through the pelting rain, his too-long hair flattened against his face, his arms gesturing to make up for
the lack of a common language.
―Go!‖ he seemed to be saying. ―Now! Now!‖ The ship, untied and unanchored now, slipped
out into the choppy water.
The smoke, dissipated by the torrential rain, lessened. I could see soldiers on shore. At least
one of them, I knew, saw us. He threw a spear that struck deep into the wooden flooring only a hand’s
span from my friend, who looked up in surprise. He shouted something else at the rowers, then
lumbered toward me, alternately shooing me away with wide swoops of his arms and pointing angrily
toward the stairwell leading belowdecks.
On shore the army was gathering, already boarding the other ships. My friend saw the danger
and turned his attention from me back to the rowers, who were all now in place. And so, tossed by the
violent crashing of waves, in a rain of spears and hurled daggers, blinded by swirling black smoke and
lightning forking into the sea around us, we set off into open water.
(Extra Space)
One of the rowers fell, a spear caught in his chest. The big man took his place, all the while
shouting orders at the others.
Through the choking pall of the smoke and rain, I could see one of the warships from the
garrison moving closer to us. Their rowers were well trained, and they had no passengers in the hold to
slow them down. Another spear thudded into the deck of our wobbly, desperately slow boat.
―Goddess, protect this ship,‖ I whispered.
I had not prayed since the day my acolytes were killed, and I had not intended to do so now. I
knew I was not worthy of the Lady’s protection. Indeed, I had actively sought death for many years
now. But I must have spoken the words out of pure fear, with the sight of the warship approaching, its
soldiers’ faces now visible across the brief span of water between them and us.
And then I understood: I was afraid. And though I felt ashamed of my fear, I asked for help.
Then my eyes, dry and dead to all feeling for so long, filled with tears.
What stirred in me was something I had forgotten existed. It was hope. Hope for these
people who had escaped imprisonment and now had the chance for a better life. Hope for the big man
who had chosen to bring me along on his journey into the unknown. And hope for myself.
A memory came to mind, a recollection from the days when I was still Snake Finder and was
first taken in by the medicine woman of our tribe to learn her skills. Upon my initiation into the ways of
the Goddess, I was asked to repeat three sacred vows:
As the embodiment of the Goddess, I vow to respect myself in all ways.
As the servant of the Goddess, I vow to respect the earth and all her creatures.
As priestess of the Goddess, I vow to respect the old ways and those who have walked my
path before me.
In violation of those vows, I had not respected myself, or my life. I had cursed the next thousand
generations of my soul. I had turned my back on everything that the Goddess of All That Is had given
me. I had jeopardized these good people who sailed now to their doom.
Pushing my sodden gray hair off my face, I stood up and walked to the bow of the boat, facing
the oncoming warship, and spread my arms wide. The wind was at my back. In my ragged but voluminous
robes, I must have looked like the specter of death to the soldiers who faced in that oncoming ship.
―Hear me, ye greater and lesser spirits!‖ I shouted, the sleeves of my garment flapping in the
ocean spray like black wings. ―I am Araiama Mari, named for Mari, the Lady of the Sea, in whose eyes
the armies of men are as motes of dust. It is my voice you hear across the abyss of time, my voice which
calls upon you to guide this vessel to safe harbor and preserve the lives it carries within it.‖
The sea must have stilled for that instant, because the sound of my words carried like thunder.
For a moment everyone—the rowers in our boat and the soldiers in the warship alike—sat silent and
motionless. Though they did not understand the language I spoke, I believe that every soul who heard
me understood exactly what I was doing.
―I offer myself as sacrifice to the Great Goddess,‖ I continued. ―Take this poor body, O
Mother, which I commend to you.‖
The big man, my friend, tried to get to me and push me to the deck, but the other rowers
stopped him forcibly. Whether they thought of me as a supernatural being or not, they could see the
wisdom in what I was doing. Once the warship sent over their first volley, we would have weapons with
which to fight.
The commander of the warship barked something at his men. They lifted their spears. I held
out my arms to make a bigger target, and one of the soldiers smiled as I did so, as if he were saying glad
to oblige.
I closed my eyes, trying not to think of the pain to come, or worse, that my sacrifice might not be
accepted. After all, the Goddess owed me nothing. As it was, a sacrifice in the face of almost certain
disaster would not be regarded as a sign of great devotion. Still, my life, worthless as it was, was all I
had to offer. Using me to draw the enemy’s fire might spare some of the others in the ship, and would
lessen the pursuing soldiers’ supply of weapons.
They released their spears. Even with my eyes closed, I could hear them whistling through the
air, hurtling toward me.
But then a remarkable thing happened. As the spears were flying, a huge wave rose up
behind us, lifting the prisoners’ boat high, out of the path of the spears. I suppose they hit the water,
but I could see nothing, as the force of the sudden swell threw me to the deck. As we hesitated at the
crest of the wave, I heard screams. But when the swell subsided, bringing us uneventfully back to the
water’s true level, the warship was gone.
(Extra Space)
Sometime during our flight, the smoke from the garrison had been replaced by fog, which
seemed to grow more dense with each passing moment. There were no other ships that we could see,
and the ocean grew as calm and silent in the fog as a placid mountain lake in summer.
Raising myself onto all fours and looking around at the ineffably calm sea, I almost wanted to
burst out laughing. As it was, my big friend must have had the same impulse, peering into the fog,
straining to hear sounds of an approaching ship and then, finding nothing, shaking his head and
laughing with relief and incredulity.
I smiled as he lifted me to my feet as easily as if he were picking up a cat. To tell the truth, my
legs were still too weak with terror to have been able to rise to a standing position on their own. He
looked at me for a long moment, his smile slowly fading. I could see in his eyes that he was toying with
the mistaken notion that I had brought about this miracle.
―Povier,‖ he said, touching his chest. At least I think that was the name he spoke. His
language was far different from mine, and his accent was difficult for me to duplicate. But I knew he was
telling me his name, and that he wanted me to tell him mine.
―Araiama Mari,‖ I said, touching my own chest.
He spread his hands to indicate the ocean around us. ―Mari?‖ he asked.
I felt a stirring of excitement. Perhaps the word for ―sea‖ was common to all languages. Or
perhaps it was ―Mari,‖ the sea-goddess for who I was named, who was known in his land as well as my
own. I nodded.
―Araiama Mari,‖ he repeated, then fell to one knee before me.
―No, no,‖ I began, but I could see the wheels I had set in motion with my ostentatious display.
―Mari... not me.‖ I made all sorts of gestures to try to convey to Povier that I had not destroyed the
oncoming warship any more than I had caused the lightning, but by this time the rowers had set down
their oars and were scrambling to their knees as well.
Oh, what had I done! Clearly, Povier regarded me as some kind of spiritual deliverer, when
nothing could be farther from the truth. ―No, no, no, no, no!‖ I insisted. ―That was the Goddess. Or
fate. Or dumb luck. I had nothing to do with anything, and I can’t keep you alive. Don’t look to me for
anything, I beg you!‖
―Araiama Mari,‖ Povier repeated reverently.
Infuriated, I pushed him so that he fell over onto his side, then I stomped back down into the
hold, where I sat with my arms around my knees until nightfall.
(Extra Space)
I wish I could say that the Goddess remained with us for the remainder of that long and
eventful ocean voyage, but She did not.
Trouble was, of course, inevitable: We had no knowledge of ships or the sea, nor even of the
configuration of the land we had left behind. We had no instruments, maps, or instructions on how to
find land. We had little food, although after we were several weeks at sea, we encountered a small atoll
on which another ship, much larger than ours, had run aground. The crew of that ship were all dead,
recently perished, from the look of their nearly-fresh corpses, from some plague that left them with
bulging black tongues and expressions of agony. But the storehouses of that ill-fated vessel were
filled to bursting with cheeses and dried meats, flour, grains, casks of wine—enough for all our
passengers to eat well for months.
We had stopped in order to ask for help and advice about our journey and its unknown
destination, but instead took the food that these fellow sailors would no longer need, and burned their
bodies in the barren sand of the atoll before continuing on our desultory way.
Povier and the others viewed the encounter with the ghost ship as another miracle from the
Sea Goddess, my Goddess, whom these people believed had delivered us from certain death. How
could I tell them that my Goddess no longer looked after me—or them—and that annihilation by
weapons might be a far better fate than the horrors Mari is capable of? They could not conceive of a
future in which death would be the best possible outcome. They could not know that a time would
come when they would beg whatever gods would listen for the mercy of oblivion.
I knew. And in time they did, too.
(Extra Space)
Whatever had killed the men aboard the ghost ship on the atoll followed us. At first, only the
weakest among us—the elderly and those who were already sick—succumbed. We had already been on
the open sea for what seemed like an eternity, so while we were saddened by these first deaths, we were
not overly alarmed by the fact that they had died within mere days of one another. Povier even took
wishful thinking a step further, believing that these deaths were the price exacted by our beneficent
Goddess in exchange for safe passage for the rest of us. There was even a ripple of excitement that,
having paid the Goddess’ blood-price, we would soon be brought to dry land.
But I knew, when I first saw the swollen black tongues and pustule-marred skin of our first
casualties, that their optimism would be short lived.
One by one they died, first the passengers, then the rowers, until Povier and I were alone on
the ship, and incapable even of steering it.
And then Povier fell ill with the same horrible symptoms as the others. In his last hours, when
he could not speak, he made a sign of blessing upon my forehead.
Chapter Forty Two
Charlie
―Knock knock.‖ Charlie opened the door and stuck his head inside.
I looked up from the computer screen, barely taking in the sight of him. I was still with Araiama
on the death ship. Charlie‘s interruption felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown at me.
―It‘s done,‖ he said.
―No, it isn‘t,‖ I said automatically. ―She‘s just... I mean we have to know...‖ I made a face,
realizing how stupid I must sound. ―What‘s done?‖
―Come see.‖ He stomped through the little house in his work boots and slid open my garden door
with a flourish, gesturing for me to go outside.
―No, really, Charlie. I can‘t right now—‖
―Yes you can.‖ He grasped both my shoulders. I looked longingly at her story, already seeming
to coagulate like blood without a heart to pump it. The text had already switched over to the screen saver.
―Come on,‖ He said. ―Take a walk with me.‖
I stood up, sighing audibly like a petulant child, and followed him through the door, where he
whistled and waved to some of the other residents.
―Everybody wants to see your reaction,‖ he said. ―And It‘s not going to kill you to leave your
hiding place once in a while,‖ Charlie added with a trace of acerbity. ―You‘ve been sitting in the same
position for two weeks.‖ He pointed. ―Anyway, there.‖
―I‘m not hiding,‖ I bristled, feeling my ego rising out of me like a big distorted balloon as Charlie
led me over the grassy hills of Elysian Fields.
What if the garrison commander were the same man who had come to her earlier, the man she
had made love with in the lagoon near the temple? I wondered excitedly, trying to remember the exact
words I had written:
I found myself kneeling before a man of middle years, with a face that had once been
handsome, with intelligent eyes. Eyes that recognized me, that were pained by the sight of me.
―Shall I never be free of you?‖ he whispered in my own language, and for a moment I was with
him again in the cool water of the lagoon, with his thigh pressed against me as the snakes came out of
their hiding places to feel our excitement, our heat, as it spread through the rippling water…
―There,‖ Charlie said, pointing out something lying flat on the ground next to the Torii arch: A
10-foot-long rectangular frame painted cinnabar red and filled with smooth wet cement. Attached to it on
one end, standing some 18 inches away from the cement bed, was another arch, almost identical to that on
the shrine, its ends carved into elaborate scrolls and decorated with gold spirals.
―What… what is it?‖ I asked, utterly bewildered.
―It‘s a…‖ Charlie looked to Cynthia, who had walked up the hill with the others. ―What‘d you say
it was?‖
―A monolith,‖ Cynthia screeched. ―Like Stonehenge. Neolithic people built them as objects of
worship.‖
―For your pagan priestess, or whatever,‖ Bebe said. ―By the way, Cynthia did the scrollwork,‖ she
said proudly.
―Everybody helped,‖ Charlie admitted. Andras cut the wood, Bebe and Katherine painted –‖
―You told them?‖ I felt my pulse hammering.
―Hey, it‘s cool,‖ Charlie said, although his eyes slid away from mine guiltily.
―Yeah, I like the whole Wiccan thing,‖ Bebe said.
―It‘s not a ‗Wiccan thing,‘‖ I spat, hardly able to speak. ―It‘s my novel.‖
―And you‘re talking to the people in it!‖ Henya said brightly. ―Charlie told us all about it.‖
I could feel my face falling like melting wax.
―Well, why not?‖ Charlie asked innocently.
―I think it‘s cute,‖ Henya insisted.
My teeth ground together. Cute? The secret of my madness, cute?
―Look, you told me that the woman you‘re writing about wanted a shrine, right? Well, this is the
real deal.‖
―And it can be for all of us, too,‖ Cynthia said.
―Us, like a family,‖ Henya said.
Cynthia elbowed her. ―Let me finish. Anyway, we thought that we‘re all going through changes
right now. All of us.‖
―Except for me,‖ Ned said. ―Nothing ever changes for me.‖
―Are you kidding? You‘re the undisputed leader of the pack at General Grant‘s,‖ Bebe said.
―Those boys‘ll follow you into hell.‖
Might as well. That‘s where you‘re all going anyway.‖ Elsie puffed up the hill, a cigarette
dangling from her lower lip. Henya snatched it out of her mouth and threw it away.
―So anyway, we – well, mostly it was Charlie and me,‖ Cynthia went on. ―We thought it might be
a good idea to build a monolith to your goddess or whatever, and in it we‘ll put all the things we don‘t need
anymore. Symbolic things.‖
―Things that have been holding us back from having the lives we want,‖ Bebe elucidated.
―That‘s deep,‖ Katherine said.
―Deep enough to hold Victoria Tanner?‖ Bebe asked.
Katherine laughed. ―I wish.‖
―Don‘t we all,‖ Cynthia said.
Slowly, their heads all turned toward me, as if expecting a benediction. These people, who would
probably never even read my book, my novel whose beating, unborn heart Charlie Nolan had exposed to
the air without the slightest care for my privacy, wanted me to turn my deepest secret into some New Age
parlor game.
Charlie! I should never have told him anything, never should have for the barest flickering
moment believed that he would understand an iota of what I was experiencing.
Now Araiama‘s wishes were all laid bare in front of these… these virtual illiterates, these people
who, at best, will go along for the roller coaster ride of a thriller, but never the leisurely horse-and-buggy
jaunt of The 1000 Lives of Araiama Mari. How dare they presume to know me or my relationship with
Araiama, or anything at all about what I do? I felt as if I were exploding inside.
―What‘s the matter?‖ Henya asked. Her head was cocked to the side, her expression one of
overwhelming concern.
―Don‘t… don‘t you like it?‖ Charlie asked.
Even Elsie looked anxious.
I inhaled in a rush, my ego retreating in shame at the magnitude of this project, the amount of
work that it had obviously required.
―It‘s magnificent,‖ I said at last.
And it was. A Neolithic masterpiece, executed with barbaric ferocity and high art. What did it
matter that the artists had ridden roughshod over the soft underbelly of my secrets? They had cared enough
about me, after all, to construct this… this thing, this monument to what they believed was my work.
I could ask for no greater friends.
―A wonderful idea.‖
―Great!‖ Charlie clapped his hands together. Okay, everybody, go get your stuff.‖
―I got mine with me,‖ Elsie said, taking a handful of Brussels sprouts out of her apron pocket. ―I
wanted a cabbage, but I didn‘t think it would fit. I‘m never cooking one of them goddamned things again.‖
―Okay,‖ Charlie said dubiously. ―Hope it doesn‘t rot, though.‖
―We‘ll just make sure it‘s covered by the cement,‖ Ned said. He reached into his pockets and
pulled out a bunch of the egg-shaped sculptures his great-grandmother had carved. ―I found ten of these.
Thought maybe you‘d like them to be a part of this.‖
I realized that he was talking to me. ―Oh,‖ I said. ―Yes, of course.‖
Well, why not, I thought. My subconscious couldn‘t decide between Goddess statues and a shrine,
so I got them both. And a monolith, to boot.
―So figure out what you‘re going to sacrifice, Mo,‖ Bebe said. ―We‘ll meet back here in half an
hour. Is that okay with everybody?‖
Everyone dispersed except for Charlie and me. ―I‘ll walk you back,‖ he said. He took my hand.
―You really like it?‖
―The monolith? Yes, it‘s beautiful,‖ I said. ―But I wish you hadn‘t told everyone about my… my
problem. It‘s a little embarrassing to me.‖
―Hey, we‘re all crazy here, right?‖
I felt myself trembling with fury again. That quick, trivializing dismissal of my peculiar madness
was almost more than I could bear.
He didn‘t understand. I wasn‘t crazy like everyone, whatever that was supposed to mean. They
didn‘t talk to their creations. They didn‘t have creations.
I wanted to slap him. I wanted him to leave. I wanted to be alone with my book, with Araiama and
her world.
―Decided what you‘re going to bring?‖ Charlie asked.
―What?‖ I‘d already forgotten why he was standing in my living room.
―The sacrifice. For the cement thing. Go. Shoo.‖ He smacked me on my rear, which infuriated me
even more.
―I don‘t like it when you do that,‖ I said quietly.
―What? Oh, sure.‖ He grinned. ―No problem.‖
When, I wondered, did Americans begin substituting No problem for I’m sorry? Or excuse me?
Or even You’re welcome? And why did the substitution bother me? Pettishly, I remembered the waitress
at the Metro Café who had insisted on referring to Katherine and me as you guys. Such turns of phrase
were just too casual for my taste. Too casual, too callous, too...
Too young.
Right. Well... That was about the long and the short of it. I wasn‘t tired of Charlie because he
was a blue-collar guy, or perennially unemployed, or NMT, or whatever they said on the Internet. He was
just too young for me.
I sat down on my bed, lost again. Then I remembered: The fucking sacrifice. Something I didn‘t
need anymore.
Charlie, I thought cruelly.
I had to close my eyes for a moment. Get yourself together, I thought. I didn‘t like what I was
becoming. What I had already become. I wanted this… love, this connection. Charlie was my lifeline, my
Ariadne‘s thread, my way out of the tangled maze of my life. I couldn‘t discard him. I didn‘t want to be
alone forever.
The problem was, I wanted to be alone now. I wasn‘t desperate enough to want someone paddling
my ass, pretending I was a schoolgirl and giggling about how ―crazy‖ all our friends were. That was young
people‘s love. It was ill-fitting on me, unwelcome, humiliating.
I picked up a pair of old shoes, the three-inch Charles Jourdan pumps I used to wear when
Desmond and I went dancing. I hadn‘t worn them since before I moved to Tennessee. I‘d often wondered
why I hadn‘t thrown them out years ago.
Maybe it was because I‘d still wanted to dance.
At the last minute, as we were leaving my cabin, I remembered the three stone eggs in my
possession. Along with Ned‘s ten, there would be 13 statues to add to the monolith. Araiama‘s lucky
thirteen, representing herself and her 12 followers. Or Christ and his disciples.
I drifted back toward my desk, planning to make a note about Araiama‘s past relationship with the
garrison commander.
―No!‖ Charlie thundered, yanking me away forcibly. ―Have a little consideration, Mo! You‘ve got
ten people waiting for you out there.‖
―I‘m… I‘m sorry,‖ I stammered. The one thing Desmond had never objected to was my working.
―That‘s okay, but geez,‖ Charlie said, hauling me toward the shrine. ―Sometimes you just get to be
ridiculous. Naomi‘s the same way.‖
He stumbled then, and I should have picked up on his thoughts, but I was thinking something
myself. ―Ten?‖ I asked.
―What?‖
―You said there were ten people waiting?‖
―Yeah, ten, including me. I know Liz would have wanted to come, too, but her mother‘s too much
of a bear to deal with.‖
―Liz and Victoria,‖ I mused. Plus me. That made thirteen.
(Extra Space)
All of us were collected around the slab of wet cement, holding our unwanted treasures.
―Mo, you‘re first,‖ Bebe said. Everyone stepped back while I sank the backs of my dancing shoes
into the very bottom of the rectangle. When the monolith was pulled upright, it would look as if it were
standing on a pair of high heels.
―Tres chic,‖ Bebe said. ―Who‘s next?‖
―I‘ll go,‖ Henya said. She brought forth a white feather. ―This is a chicken feather,‖ she said. ―It
represents my chicken-heartedness. You all know I came here to start a long vacation trip around America
that never happened. I was just too scared. I guess I‘ve been scared of everything most of my life. But
that‘s going to change,‖ she said with a determined nod. She pressed the feather into the cement. ―With this
feather, I give up my scarediness. If that‘s a word.‖ Blushing, she retreated.
I felt ashamed. Henya had taken the whole thing seriously. It occurred to me that she probably
actually intended to make a change in her life because of that feather.
Katherine came next, with a small Limoges hand mirror. ―I know I‘ve been vain. It‘s just
insecurity, really.‖
―No,‖ Forrest said with exaggerated denial. He smiled indulgently, but Katherine only blushed and
refused to meet his gaze. She was still angry about his peccadillo with Jazzy, I knew. Nothing but time –
and maybe not even that – would heal that wound.
―I‘m going to try to pay more attention to what‘s on the inside instead of the outside from now
on,‖ she said, still red and trembling. ―I learned that from the fashion show.‖
Forrest went next, tossing in a crumpled-up wad of paper. ―Those are the words to the tsunami
song,‖ he said. ―It‘s never going to work as a pop tune.‖
―Hear, hear,‖ Charlie said.
―You didn‘t have to agree so fast,‖ Forrest objected.
―Wait‘ll you see this.‖ Charlie lumbered forward, gathering his long hair into a pony tail with a
rubber band. Then he pulled a pair of scissors out of his jacket pocket and, to a chorus of gasps, chopped it
off. ―There,‖ he said, tossing the mane into the cement. ―I‘ve decided to be respectable. Mom and I are
going into the catering business together.‖
―And here‘s my cabbages,‖ Elsie said as we all cheered. ―All our recipes will be my own. And
dear Charlie‘s.‖ She put her arm around her son. He kissed the top of her head.
Richard put in the map he‘d used to get from the airport to his house, after he‘d forgotten the way.
Cynthia added one of her pots, saying that the only really important thing she did with her hands was to
touch Bebe. Bebe, in turn, installed a heart-shaped lollipop in a cellophane wrapper.
―Nothing‘s going to come between my heart and you ever again,‖ she said to Cynthia. ―No
barriers, even transparent ones.‖
Ned placed the egg sculptures carefully around the edges of the monolith. Then, to everyone‘s
surprise, he shyly brought out a toy gun and fitted it into a clean spot. ―I‘ve been my parents‘ child too
long,‖ he said. ―If they don‘t want me, it‘s their loss. It‘s mine, too, but there‘s nothing I can do about it, so
I‘m going to stop feeling bad.‖
―Right on, buddy,‖ Andras said, slapping Ned on the back. ―Who needs the old fuckers, right,
Jazzy?
―Oh, shut up,‖ Jazzy said wearily. She pulled off her earrings. ―I wanted to put in that stupid
clock, but Andras thinks it‘s worth keeping.‖ She was attractive again, Mo saw, her hair freshly colored,
her eyes made up, her clothes tight. She pressed the earrings – large, dangling Indian brass things with a lot
of moving parts – into the cement. ―I never liked these much, anyway,‖ she said.
―That wasn‘t really the point,‖ Cynthia began, but Bebe silenced her.
―Who cares?‖ she mouthed.
Cynthia shrugged. ―Okay, that was special. Andras, do you have something?‖
He scurried behind a bush.
―What the hell‘s he doing?‖ Jazzy moaned.
Andras came out clutching the cuckoo clock. His eyes welled with tears. ―This is my sacrifice,‖ he
said in a loud, raw voice.
―Oh, Jesus,‖ Jazzy said, rolling her eyes.
―This woman – my wife – means more to me than anything.‖ He reached past the clock to touch
Jazzy‘s shoulder. ―More than my pride, as you all saw, with me coming back even though she was doing
Forrest here.‖
―Forrest and Katherine both turned scarlet again.
―And now, I love her more than my masterpiece.‖
―No, Andras!‖ Cynthia exclaimed.
For a moment Jazzy looked from Cynthia to Andras, confused. Then her usual hard-edged sneer
returned to her face, and she shoved Cynthia out of the way. ―You don‘t have to do that, baby,‖ she told
Andras.
―I want to,‖ Andras said, his expression naked. ―Just let me do it quick, before it gets to be too
hard.‖
Slowly, silently, Jazzy stepped aside. Andras shoved the big clock into the very top of the cement
frame with a squishing, burping sound. The face was set at 6 o‘clock, with eyes, breasts, and vagina all at
full exposure.
―There,‖ he said, stepping back and wiping the sheet of tears from his face. ―It‘s done.‖
Jazzy walked into his arms, and they held onto one another ferociously.
We all stood in silence for some time, contemplating the bizarre prone sculpture, with its carnality,
vanity, violence, greed, joy, and beauty. A true monument to Araiama‘s Goddess, I thought.
(Extra Space)
―Should someone say something?‖ I ventured.
I will,‖ Bebe volunteered. ―One word: Par-TAY!‖ Her voice roared over the valley.
Charlie whooped. ―You got it! A... a construction party.‖ He shrugged. ―Whatever.‖
I felt less than enthusiastic about this suggestion. It seemed that nothing was too trivial for these
people to occasion a party. Araiama‘s story was nearly finished. I needed to get back to it before she... that
is, before I lost my train of thought.
Still, they had all worked hard to build the thing, and I supposed I was at least partially responsible
for its conception, having opened my big mouth to Charlie in a moment of despair. ―Sure,‖ I said, stuck
between a rock and a hard place.
―Does it have to be today?‖ Henya asked. ―I have to work this afternoon.‖
―Me, too,‖ Ned said. ―Maybe the weekend would be a better time.‖
―Hey, I‘ve got it,‖ Bebe said. ―It‘s almost Halloween, right? And here‘s this pagan thing
dedicated to Mother Earth or whatever.‖ She jerked her head toward the arch.
I shot Charlie a black look.
―So why don‘t we have a Halloween bash on Saturday? The cement thing will be dry by then. We
can pull it up, make it a celebration, okay?‖
I‘ll make a beer run,‖ Charlie said. ―And I‘ll bet Richard‘s got a fifth or three stashed in his car.‖
―How about it, Richard?‖ Bebe prodded. ―I‘ll go see if Jazzy can rig us up with some costumes.
Charlie, you‘re in charge of the brewskis. Take Ned.‖
―Ned?‖
―He buys the liquor for General Grant‘s. Make him use his discount.‖
―Oh, man,‖ Charlie muttered. ―Are all those guys from the gay bar going to come?‖ His upper lip
was wrinkling.
―Yes,‖ Ned said pointedly.
―Why not?‖ Bebe called over her shoulder. ―Just so they bring food.‖
―Forget food,‖ Charlie said. ―They can bring booze. Those guys drink like fish.‖ He stuck his
hands in his pockets in a gesture of resignation.
Bebe was out of earshot by then, and soon Charlie and I found ourselves once again awkwardly,
uncomfortably alone.
―You‘re going to come, aren‘t you?‖ he asked, trying to sound lighthearted. ―I mean, it‘s all for
you.‖
I nodded, since I couldn‘t think of anything else to do. ―I‘ll order some pizzas,‖ I said.
―So is your priestess going to talk to you now?‖ He smiled.
I smiled back. It wouldn‘t do to go into an analysis of how my work had become entwined with
the desires of a character I‘d created. As it was, I was wondering if Araiama had known the shrine was
being constructed, even though I hadn‘t. Maybe that was why she‘d given me so much information... ―Oh,
for Christ‘s sake,‖ I blurted. She? She hadn‘t given me anything. She was a goddamned figment of my
imagination.
―What?‖
―I mean...‖ I calmed myself. Whatever I said, Charlie wasn‘t going to understand it. ―Uh, I mean,
yes,‖ I said. ―I hope so. After all this.‖ I waved vaguely at the arch and the monolith lying wetly before it.
Both really were beautifully constructed. ―Thank you so much, Charlie.‖
―Hey, no problem.‖
I screamed inwardly. I would have to say something; I simply couldn‘t stand hearing that overused
phrase one more time.
Although really, I thought, what good would that do? Charlie wouldn‘t have the slightest idea why
his choice of words would even bother me. I would just seem to be cranky and difficult and fussy about
nothing.
Then again, what would the alternative be? To put up with having my ass patted while told to
shoo? To rationalize always that Charlie behaved the way he did because he just didn‘t understand? When
would he understand? How long would I have to wait for him to grow up?
He was looking at the shrine. His eyes were faraway; he was thinking, imagining. Posing, I was
sure of it. Posing.
Of course, I thought. He was proud of his work, and my compliments weren‘t enough. Someone
else had to see it. Someone else had to approve. That was what he longed for, whom he imagined.
And I understood.
―Charlie?‖ I asked gently.
―Yeah?‖
―Why are you standing like that?‖ I asked. I couldn‘t help it.
He pretended not to know what I was talking about.
I cut to the chase. ―I‘d like you to invite Naomi to the party,‖ I said.
Instantly the pose vanished. His hands came off his hips, his sucked-in stomach lurched out like
the button on a turkey thermometer, and the seeking gaze into the middle distance squinted and fairly shot
out sparks of insecurity and guilt. So that was it. I‘d hit the nail on the head. He‘d been thinking about
Naomi. He had made something wonderful with his own hands, and wanted her to see it.
He frowned. ―Hey, if this is some kind of—‖
―It isn‘t anything,‖ I said as gently as I could. ―I‘d just like you to invite her.‖ I kissed him. ―The
shrine is a gift beyond measure,‖ I said. ―I mean that.‖
―Hey, no—‖
―Please don‘t say ‗no problem,‘‖ I said, handing him some money. ―That‘s for the party.‖
He shambled away, giving me a little wave. I felt all noble and wise and tragically heroic for a
minute or two, before realizing that I too had been holding in my stomach. It felt good to let it out.
Chapter Forty Three
Forrest
At Liberty High School, Forrest McCormick was quickly becoming known as the gargoyle of the
music room. A crude chalk drawing of a bearded fat man exuding waves of odor greeted him in his one
o‘clock class, but he took no note of its content as he erased it. He had been sleeping in the pup tent for
nearly six weeks, showering at the YMCA in the mornings, living on canned tuna and chili, hoping for
Katherine‘s attention while she remained relentlessly aloof. He looked—and felt—like a rotting carcass
that Katherine had discarded with a whistle of relief.
Why did she stay? He kept asking himself the question. It wasn‘t for Richard, because Richard
had left Forrest‘s tent more than a week before for the comfort of Henya‘s Airstream. That had come as no
big surprise to anyone. Still, the two of them had gone to Katherine together like sinful teenage lovers.
Forrest had shamelessly listened at the rusted metal door to their confession of love.
Katherine had been utterly courteous, of course—if the devil himself had come seeking to take her
soul, Katherine would offer him a cup of coffee and some Piroulines—and the interaction soon turned from
an agonized confrontation to a pleasant social call. Forrest was himself tempted to join them, toss down a
couple of cookies and sit for once on a chair that didn‘t fold for storage, but he hadn‘t been invited.
He forced himself to pay attention to the voices he was directing in a hideous rendition of the
tsunami song. Concert Chorus had begun rehearsing it before he‘d sacrificed the words into the cement of
the monolith at Elysian Fields, and besides, he had no alternate words. He had hoped to include it in the
school‘s spring concert, but he knew now that it was never going to work.
Washing, washing,
Waves are washing
One of the tenors began to giggle, and then the dam broke with the honk and bray of changing
boys‘ voices struggling not to laugh while singing.
―Oh, forget it.‖ He waved his baton in dismissal as the end-of-period bell rang. The boys tumbled
out, still singing, having found a way to make ―washing, washing‖ sound lascivious.
Forrest sat down heavily on the piano bench.
―Maybe it‘s the words,‖ someone said above him. He looked up. It was Liz Petrovsky, blushing
furiously, apparently trying to offer consolation. ―I mean, a song about washing might not seem that...
well, riveting to the teenage mind. If you know what I mean.‖
―It isn‘t about washing,‖ Forrest explained doggedly. ―It‘s about tsunamis.‖
―Yeah. Well...‖
―Also not interesting to the teenage mind?‖
―Well, some. Mine,‖ Liz said loyally. ―I‘m interested in current events and stuff. I just don‘t
know about a song.‖
―It was originally supposed to be an oratorio,‖ Forrest said, feeling as if he were pathetically
seeking the approval of a high schooler.
―Oh. Is that like an opera?‖
―Er, no. Okay, sort of. It‘s a religious piece, without a real story except for a theme of suffering
and redemption. That is, not all oratorios are about suffering...‖
―I understand,‖ Liz said, nodding solemnly.
―The main musical motif going through it is this theme.‖ He played the ―washing, washing‖
tsunami melody on the piano, only instead of the sprightly tempo which he had judged would make the
piece more popular, the music was much slower and more stately.
―This is the chorus of the angels,‖ Forrest said over his playing. ―And this... Wait.‖ He swung
around abruptly, creating a maelstrom of papers on the desk behind him before emerging with a folded,
four-sided piece of manuscript paper. ―This is the song of the Virgin Mary. It‘s meant to be sung in
counterpoint to the angels. Can you read it?‖
―I‘ll try, Liz said.
Forrest began banging out the main theme again. ―Do you see where I am?‖
―Yes.‖
―Sing,‖ he commanded.
And Liz obeyed, her extraordinary voice transforming her within five seconds from an insecure
tenth grader into the Queen of Heaven.
Forrest closed his eyes at the ringing, sure quality of her voice. This, he thought, this was what his
music was supposed to sound like. He had tried to shrink it to a size that might fit into a common,
accessible mold, simplifying it into a tune that might be sung by an ordinary singer. But that was not his
music. What he had written was this, this grand thing, too large and difficult ever to be performed in a
place like Beltsville, Tennessee, but it was this, nonetheless.
Tears flowed down his face as Liz sang the final phrase perfectly, her voice diminishing from its
full, lush radiance to a whisper, still perfectly in tune, the sound of forgiveness itself, the music of a soul
freed.
They were both silent as the echo of the last chord reverberated in the room. In time, Forrest
wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
―Are you okay, Mr. McCormick?‖ Liz asked uncertainly.
He took her shoulders. ―Liz, you will be a great singer,‖ he said. ―There is not another voice like
yours anywhere. With a few years of good training... Well, I don‘t know how far you can go. Farther than I
can see.‖
Liz‘s face broke into a huge smile. ―Hey, you mean it?‖
A little puff of air escaped from between Forrest‘s lips. Here was a treasure, a voice that occurred
less than once in a generation, and the possessor of this treasure was only happy because he had approved
of her. ―I do,‖ he said softly.
―Oh, Mr. McCormick, you‘re just so cool.‖ She flung her arms around his neck, holding him in a
vise-like embrace.
―Liz... Liz... He felt himself suffocating in the pink, fleshy folds of her arms. ―Please...‖
―You‘re the only person in my whole life who‘s ever had any faith in me.‖ She sniffed loudly.
―Now... Okay, Liz, that‘s enough.‖ He finally resorted to grabbing her wrists and muscling her
away.
―I love you,‖ she confessed.
―Oh, Liz. Please—‖
―I do.‖ She was sobbing. ―I really do.‖
―Excuse me?‖ The words sounded loud, shrill, and dangerous. Victoria Tanner entered the room
like an avenging angel touching down in a cesspool of iniquity. ―What do you think you‘re doing with my
daughter?‖ Her projection was tremendous. The thought passed through Forrest‘s mind that Liz‘s superb
nasal resonance probably came from her mother.
―I asked you a question, Mister McCormick,‖ Victoria trumpeted. ―To repeat, what were you
doing with my daughter?‖
―Oh, Mom—‖
―Shut up,‖ Victoria said, pushing Liz aside as she advanced on Forrest. Well?‖
―I wasn‘t doing anything with your daughter, Mrs. Tanner. She was singing—‖
―It didn‘t look to me like singing,‖ Victoria hissed. ―There was no music that I could hear. Your
arms were around her, and your faces seemed to be connected, Mr. McCormick. Yours and my sixteenyear-old daughter‘s. And, oh yes, as I recall, she was telling you she loved you.‖
―Then our faces couldn‘t have been connected, could they?‖ Liz shrilled.
―I assure you, Mrs.—‖ Forrest began, but Victoria cut him off.
―Save your explanations for the school board,‖ she said, grabbing Liz roughly by her arm.
―We‘re going to have a talk with the principal.‖
―But he wasn‘t doing anything wrong!‖ Liz shouted. ―You‘re just jealous because Mrs. Davis put
me in the fashion show.‖
Victoria slapped Liz across her face.
―You bitch!‖ Liz screamed, her face already beginning to show the red outline of her mother‘s
hand. ―Everybody knows what a bitch you are! The Society Of The Arse even kicked you out because no
one can stand you!‖
Victoria pulled back her arm, preparing to strike again, but Forrest pushed between them. ―Go,
Liz,‖ he said quietly. ―It‘ll be all right, I promise. You just take care of yourself.‖
―Oh, so now you‘re the big rescuer, is that it?‖ Victoria spat. ―Well, we‘ll see who‘s the monster
here.‖
―We already know who the monster is,‖ Liz said, her voice trembling and weak in its defiance.
Forrest shook his head. ―Go,‖ he whispered. ―Don‘t give her a reason to hit you again.‖
―You son of a bitch,‖ Victoria said.
―Get out of my room,‖ he said, turning his back on her.
(Extra Space)
The principal, a fierce-faced man named Thomas (―Bulldog‖) Briggs, was marking time in his last
year before retirement. He had long ago ceased to view students as anything other than predictably
disappointing young people moving irrevocably toward becoming predictably disappointing old people,
with few changes in between. He hadn‘t had sex with his wife in over a year. He spent his evenings in the
basement of his house (his wife called it a den) watching pornographic movies on a five-foot projection
screen T.V. His dream was to watch his wife die, and then to move to Tahiti, where he would drink Mai
Tais with umbrellas in them served by topless women and listen to the roaring surf.
But Bulldog Briggs knew that his dream would probably not come to pass. His wife maintained a
state of almost frightening vigor, leaving their home—that is, the part of it that was above ground, where
she dwelled—before first light every morning to work out at her gym before going to work as a realtor.
She was very successful at her job. After Victoria Tanner, Tom Briggs‘ wife was the second hottest real
estate agent in the area. The two women were, in fact, best friends, or at least pretended to be. Which was
why he listened wearily to Mrs. Tanner‘s litany of complaints against Forrest McCormick without once
entertaining any intention of doing what she wanted.
―The girl adamantly denied your involvement,‖ Briggs told Forrest after Victoria had stomped out
with a threat to take her grievance to the school board. ―And another teacher came in specifically to say
she‘d heard the whole exchange.‖
―Which teacher?‖ Forrest asked.
―Abigail French.‖
―The math teacher? She was there?‖
Briggs shrugged, then nodded. Mrs. French had sold her mother‘s house through Victoria Tanner,
who had talked her into a quick sale at a low price and then sold the same house three weeks later for twice
the money. ―Look, Forrest. The Tanner woman‘s a troublemaker. But she has a point. Even though you
might be behaving impeccably, you‘re not giving the impression of being respectable. Do you
understand?‖
Forrest looked down at his only slightly soiled tie. ―What impression am I giving?‖ he asked,
genuinely puzzled.
―Oh, good God, look at you,‖ Briggs said. ―You‘re scruffy and ragged. All your clothes are too
big for you, as if you hadn‘t eaten for months.‖
That was very nearly true. ―Thirty seven pounds,‖ Forrest said, pulling at the cinched waistband
of his clownishly large trousers. He forced a grin. ―Getting into shape.‖
―And you‘re often covered in... in moss, or something. Grass, maybe. As if you—‖
―I‘ve been living in a tent,‖ Forrest admitted.
Briggs colored, cleared his throat, looked away. ―What do you mean, you‘ve been living in a
tent?‖
Forrest pulled himself up to his full, if modest, height. ―I‘ve moved into a trailer park,‖ he said
with dignity. ―But I don‘t have a trailer at the moment. So I‘ve been staying in a tent.‖
―You‘ve been....‖ Briggs cleared his throat again. ―Where do you wash?‖
―At the Y,‖ Forrest said. He almost added ―or here, in the boys‘ locker room,‖ but decided against
it.
―Well, what‘s the matter, have you been evicted or something? Are you in some kind of trouble?‖
―No, I just wanted to be with the woman I love.‖
Briggs closed his eyes in exasperation. If Forrest had been a student, Briggs would have sent him
immediately to detention. ―All right, I‘m not interested in your private life. But it had better not spill over
into your job, that‘s all I‘m saying. No kissing students—‖
―I never—‖
―Okay, okay.‖ Briggs waved him down. ―All I‘m saying is, if you‘re flipping out, I‘d like you to
keep it to yourself, and not embarrass yourself, the school, or me.‖
Forrest nodded. ―I‘m not flipping out, Tom. In fact, I think my mind is clearer than it‘s ever been.
I‘ve been writing an oratorio—‖
―Not interested!‖ Briggs shouted, his jowls vibrating. ―I don‘t care how clearly you‘re thinking.
If it‘s not about school, I don‘t want to know about it. And I don‘t want to hear about you again except in
the context of teaching music. Is that clear?‖
Forrest showed his palms. ―Sure.‖
―Don‘t give that woman another excuse to come in here.‖ He sat down at his desk and pretended
to read.
―You‘d like it at the trailer park, Tom—‖
Glaring, Briggs slammed his fist on the desk.
―I‘m going,‖ Forrest said.
Chapter Forty Four
Henya
The office of St. Peter‘s Episcopal was small and cramped-looking even when it was vacant:
Books lined every wall, stacked from floor to ceiling, covering nearly every inch of space, including the
area in front of its one window. In the center of the room stood a small desk on which sat a telephone that
was hidden by a stack of papers and the remnants of Father Gordon‘s lunch from several days before.
―You‘ve got to set this out where I can find it,‖ Henya said, gingerly moving a plate of green furcovered cheese to the edge of the desk.
She had kept the church in running order, performing every task from keeping the accounts to
cleaning the lavatories, for nearly twenty years. She was also the Parish Nurse, visiting church members
who were sick at home or in the hospital, although Father Gordon almost always made the visit ahead of
her.
The congregation had been nearly nonexistent when the Follets had first come to Beltsville, and it
grew even smaller when the priest and his wife took in little Henrietta Yauch and blatantly referred to her
as their child. There had been a storm of speculation about why a white Christian couple, and particularly a
man of the cloth, would adopt a colored girl in Middle Tennessee. After all, didn‘t she have her own
people to look after her? The girl wasn‘t even an orphan, although not surprisingly, her real father was
absent and unknown.
The Folletts never explained themselves. Even after someone made the observation that the nineyear-old Henya was obviously not entirely black, having ―skin the color of a paper bag‖, as an anonymous
parishioner wrote on a note accompanying a brick thrown through the Folletts‘ living room window, Father
Gordon and Charlotte behaved as if the silent, thin little girl had not caused a ripple of disturbance in their
serene and happy lives.
Even if you are the colored girl’s father and the mother is a child, the note went on, you have no
business interfering! This is a matter for the women’s prison in Sequatchie!
―Charlotte, they think I‘m the child‘s father,‖ Father Gordon told his wife.
She bit her lip.
―And that I‘ve raped her underage mother.‖
Charlotte Follett trembled in her chair. ―Don‘t even give those people a thought,‖ she said quietly.
―Not a single thought.‖ She took his hand then and squeezed it, and Gordon Follett counted himself among
the luckiest of men.
In time, Henya‘s birth mother—who was, incidentally a white woman well past the age of
consent—did, in fact, come to spend several years as the guest of the county at the Women‘s Detention
Center in Sequatchie, but not for anything related to Henya. Her part in the crimes committed against her
daughter were never brought to public light. That was the deal Father Gordon arranged: No police and no
punishment, in exchange for the girl and her mother‘s promise never to contact Henya or the Folletts.
(Extra Space)
It was on a Thanksgiving night that Charlotte Follett first found Henya, naked and shivering in the
snow at the edge of the woods, her big eyes caught in Mrs. Follett‘s headlights like those of a timid deer.
The pastor‘s wife, who had been returning home after a celebratory dinner of dry turkey
drumsticks and gluey dressing at the County Home for the Aged, skidded to a stop after realizing that the
creature behind the tree was not a deer but, in unbelievable fact, a young girl without a stitch of clothing.
Henya had already turned to run when Mrs. Follett got out of the car, but the movement was
desultory, hopeless, as if she were deciding between running until she dropped, or simply dropping then
and there.
―Come with me,‖ Charlotte Follett had said gently, not pursuing the girl but holding out her hand
to her. ―Whatever you‘ve been through, sweetheart, it‘s over. My husband and I will take care of you. I
promise you.‖
Later she would tell her husband the Episcopal priest that she had no idea why she had made such
a sweeping statement. She could have—should have—said, ―We‘ll straighten things out,‖ or simply,
―Let‘s get you some food and clothes.‖ But instead she had promised this naked child—her nakedness
more pronounced by the fact that her breasts had begun to swell—promised that she and her husband would
take care of her.
And they had. For the rest of their lives.
Henya‘s wrists had been encircled by rope burns. She was anemic. She had never been to a dentist.
The soles of her feet were raw. No one knew how far she had walked in the woods that night. Her vagina
was red and suppurating. Her anus was bleeding. She had gonorrhea. She told the Folletts later that her
mother had prostituted her most recently in exchange for a rock of crystal meth, that she was regularly tied
up during both sex and sleep, and that she had attempted to escape three times before. She was nine years
old.
What the priest held to be most remarkable, however, was not that the girl had escaped, but that
she had escaped four times. Four times she had run away from that hellhole where she lived. Three of
those times she had been returned (twice being raped by the men who‘d found her) to a life of beatings and
starvation and constant assault, and still she escaped a fourth time. And had that not been successful, Father
Gordon knew that Henya would have tried again a fifth, sixth, seventh time.
Follett, who had hoped for a bigger parish than St. Peter‘s, felt his disappointment vanish when he
learned Henya‘s story, as if the burden on his shoulders had transformed into wings. He gave a prayer of
thanks that he had been privileged to meet one of God‘s chosen creatures, a human being who had retained
her spirit in the face of almost unbelievable adversity.
―It was the Lord speaking,‖ he said to his wife when she apologized for promising the girl that
they themselves would take care of her. ―He just used your voice.‖
He went to Henya‘s mother with a thousand dollars—nearly all of their savings—and a legal
document that required only the woman‘s signature. He showed her the money first, and her eyes never left
it. Once the paper granting the Folletts custody was signed, Henya‘s mother stuck the money in her bra,
got into a battered Oldsmobile and, leaving Father Gordon behind on her front porch, burned blue smoke
down the highway.
(Extra Space)
―Here, let me read something to you,‖ Father Gordon said, easing his bulky bottom comfortably
into the chair across from Henya.
―Please take the desk, Father,‖ Henya said. She had always called him Father, although he never
knew whether that was out of respect for his clerical office or as a sign of daughterly devotion. It didn‘t
matter; either reason was good enough for him.
―Nonsense,‖ he said, waving her away. It was their Tuesday afternoon routine, Father Gordon
preparing next Sunday‘s sermon while Henya updated the church‘s accounts, the two of them crammed
between stacks of books and papers in the tiny church office.
―I want to talk about willingness,‖ he said. ―How Jesus‘ disciples weren‘t necessarily ready to take
on the task of founding the Christian church when they were called upon to do so. They each had character
flaws—Peter was weak, Matthew was dishonest, Thomas was... Well, you know about him. The point is,
none of them were the right kind of people to undertake such an overwhelming job. And yet, when you
think about it, who are the right kind of people? I mean, if you need to lift a heavy object, do you have to
wait around for a weightlifter to walk into your house? Or do you just get all the people you know
together, give them some pizza and beer, and do the best you can?‖
Henya smiled. ―Take what you can get, right?‖
―That‘s it. If you have a hundred people, you only need one percent from each of them.‖
―As long as they‘re willing to give one percent.‖
―Exactly.‖ Father Gordon scribbled some notes. ―That‘s good. It‘s all about being willing. I‘m
going to start with a reference to Paul, in his first letters to the Church at Corinth—‖
―Mr. Follett.‖
The priest looked up, surprised, adjusting his glasses. Victoria Tanner was leaning in the
doorway, a fixed smile frozen on her face. ―May I see you?‖ Her eyes slid over toward Henya. ―Alone?‖
Henya stood up, her eyes never meeting Victoria‘s.
―No, stay where you are,‖ the priest said, motioning Henya to stay. ―Mrs. Tanner and I can talk in
the sanctuary.‖ A pile of papers slid to the floor as he rose.
―I‘ll take care of that,‖ Henya said. Father Gordon patted her arm.
Only when the two of them were on their way to the sanctuary did Henya see Liz reluctantly
following behind her mother, like an ocean-going ship being towed by a tugboat.
(Extra Space)
―Your choir director is a disgrace and a danger,‖ Victoria hissed.
―Our choir director?‖ Father Gordon repeated, bewildered. ―Forrest?‖
―He‘s not what you think,‖ Victoria said. ―He may pretend to be a harmless little fool—‖
―He is not,‖ Liz protested.
―He was kissing my daughter,‖ Liz went on.
―That‘s a lie,‖ Liz spat. ―I kissed him. ―And it wasn‘t a kiss kiss—‖ At this point, Victoria tried to
shout over her, but Liz‘s Concert Chorus training prevailed. ―It was a thank you kiss, that‘s all!‖ she
shouted. ―And the principal knows all about it and sent you away because he knows you‘re a crazy crank,
so now—‖
―Don‘t you dare speak to me that way!‖
―So now you‘ve come to Father Gordon, but he‘s not going to take your side, either—‖
―Shut up!‖
―—because he knows you‘re evil—‖
Victoria slapped her. The sound, coming as punctuation after the mother-daughter shouting
match, reverberated through the now-silent sanctuary.
For a moment, time froze. Victoria‘s eyes burned with fury. Liz paled, the red mark on her cheek
clarifying in seconds into the exact configuration of a hand, its fingers reaching toward her ears. Father
Gordon, stunned, his mouth startled open, sat still as death.
Only one person moved. Henya, who had stolen into the sanctuary after the shouting began, now
walked forward briskly toward Victoria. ―You‘d better go,‖ she said quietly.
Victoria looked at her briefly, making no attempt to hide her contempt. ―As I was saying,‖ she
crooned, affecting a calm and dignified demeanor, ―you probably don‘t know him.‖ She cast a throwaway
glance at Henya. ―And I‘m afraid Mr. McCormick isn‘t the only member of your staff you don‘t know.‖
―Maybe not,‖ Henya interjected. ―But he does know you, Mrs. Tanner. He saw you slap that
child just now, and I‘m telling you to get out of God‘s house before you do it again.‖
―She does it all the time,‖ Liz said sullenly.
Victoria looked from Henya to Father Gordon and back again. ―I‘m talking to Father Follett, not
you,‖ she said, her voice dripping with disdain. ―Not either of you.‖
The priest cleared his throat. ―Mrs. Tanner, I think perhaps a cooling off period might not be a
bad idea. I‘ll take Liz home—‖
―I suppose this might be the time to tell you that your little churchmouse here—‖ She tossed her
head angrily toward Henya. ―—your daughter has been sleeping with Katherine Davis‘ husband.‖
Father Gordon‘s gaze faltered, just for a moment, but Victoria caught it. ―But that doesn‘t bother
Mrs. Davis—your organist—because she‘s busy having sex with your choir director. A tidy circle,
wouldn‘t you say? My, what an interesting place St. Peter‘s has turned out to be.‖
―Now, that‘s just hearsay,‖ the priest said, although it sounded like a half-hearted defense, even to
Henya, who squirmed in discomfort.
―Hearsay?‖ Victoria repeated innocently. ―Then you have heard, haven‘t you? About the goingson at that trailer park?‖ When he failed to answer, her mouth split into a grin. ―I just want to know,
Father,‖ she asked her eyes bright, ―while your organist and your music director are fornicating in the choir
loft, and the organist‘s husband is boning your pet darkie, do you watch?‖
Father Gordon had begun to stand up at the word darkie, but by that time Henya was already
gripping Victoria‘s upper arm. ―Let‘s go,‖ Henya said.
Victoria tried to shake her off. ―Get away from me! Elizabeth—‖ Her fingers grasped at air as
Liz fled toward Father Gordon.
―We‘ll get Liz home,‖ he said, summoning an emotionless face.
―Give... me... my... daughter!‖ Victoria exploded between clenched teeth.
―No, ma‘am,‖ Henya said, shoving Victoria toward the exit. ―This darkie ain‘t going to give you
nothing.‖ Henya was a slight woman, both thinner and shorter than Victoria Tanner, but with the wiry
musculature of someone who had never experienced an indolent moment.
Victoria stopped herself from slamming into the double exit doors by holding out both hands to
absorb the blow. ―Who do you think you are?‖ she seethed. ―Everyone knows about you.‖
―Then you‘d know that I‘m someone who had a mother just like you,‖ Henya answered, crossing
her arms over her chest. ―She‘s dead now, and every day I thank God that she is. And that‘s what your
daughter‘s going to think about you.‖
―How dare—‖
―And if I ever see you treating that sweet girl like something under your heel again, I‘m going to
report you to the police.‖
Victoria was outside now, holding onto the open door for a parting shot. ―You do that,
honeychile,‖ she spat with all the malice she could muster. ―I know some cops who would just love to hear
about how you‘re luring young girls into that place full of queers and adulterers.‖
―And nigger lovers,‖ Henya added. ―Don‘t forget that one, Missy ‗Toria.‖
―I haven‘t,‖ Victoria said. ―That‘s all Katherine‘s husband wants from you. Why, you‘re not even
pretty.‖ She stuck her nose into the air. ―Just the bastard kid of the town whore, and no matter how hard
you‘ve tried to be different, you‘re going to end up just like your mama.‖
Henya took two long strides toward the door and kicked it shut behind Victoria, who gave her the
finger before turning and walking quickly away.
Henya stood where she was for a long moment, feeling her breath hot in her nostrils, her shoulders
shaking the way they had when she had stepped, naked, from behind the tree those long years ago, leaving
the imprints of her toes in the snow.
Chapter Forty Five
Mo
The inauguration of the monolith was held on Halloween Eve. It was raised at sunset, directly in
front of the Torii arch from the SOTA fashion show, where the last solar rays shot through the arch and
splashed red over the face of our new monument, illuminating particularly the vagina of Andras‘ former
clock.
Lifting the huge cement slab and placing it into the hillside took the efforts of all of us at Elysian
Fields, plus the habitués of General Grant‘s Tomb and one special guest, Naomi Pearson, who informed us
that she was present only in her capacity as Charlie‘s date, and that everyone could drink as much as they
wanted without fear of reportage.
That seemed to me as smooth a transition as possible. Charlie should never have been with me in
the first place, no more than Andras should have been with Cynthia, or Forrest with Jazzie who,
incidentally, dressed us all for our pagan holiday in swaths of chiffon and bells.
Jazzie had finally come to understand that women were not her enemies. It was almost laughable,
to think of Andras as the prize in the competition she imagined between herself and all the other females on
the planet.
I wish I could have espoused such a simple idea. Me fight woman for man. But frankly, I
couldn‘t work up that kind of fervor against Naomi, who was lovely and bright and, as anyone could see,
much more suitable for Charlie than I ever was.
I couldn‘t even get myself into a lather anymore about Toni Berenstein, my estranged husband‘s
new Significant Other. She didn‘t ―steal‖ Desmond, as if he were some inert rock. I‘m sure Desmond had
gone quite willingly to the dark zones of her heart and other parts of her anatomy.
Anyway, Jazzy was part of things again, and we were having yet another party for which costumes
were required, and Forrest insisted on singing his stupid tsunami song even though he‘d sacrificed it to the
monolith, and Bebe bossed everyone around all evening while Cynthia shrieked intermittently about some
injustice or other, and Ned stood huddled in the midst of a bunch of haughty drag queens, sucking on a beer
while Richard and Henya and Charlie and Naomi all looked as if they were having the time of their lives.
Then all of us danced around the monolith and through the Torii arch as if it were a double Maypole, even
though it was the day before Halloween.
Jesus, I thought. How did I end up here?
Easy. I lost my life, and got this other one in its place. This was the do-over, the second chance,
the opportunity to right all the wrongs of the past.
All right. I‘ll take it.
I’ll take it. But make it be worth something, I begged whatever goddess might be listening. Being
with Charlie had been like plugging my ears so that I could block out the sound of the clock ticking. But it
was still ticking. Those inexorable hands were still moving.
(Extra Space)
―Do you like it?‖ I asked as I sat down in a quiet spot beside the lake. A bonfire burned nearby,
casting dancing shadows on our stone monument. One of Ned‘s boys had given me a joint to nurture on my
own, understanding my need for solitary reflection, as well as assuming, correctly, that I was an old hippie
who would welcome a quiet toke alone.
―I do,‖ Araiama said. She threw a flower onto the water.
―Am I free, then?‖
―Not until our stories are finished. Mine and yours.‖
―I have no story, Araiama.‖ Charlie had been no more than a false start, a hopeful gambit that had
led nowhere. Now that our time together was over, I realized that I‘d just been hanging on because I didn‘t
want to admit to being sexually irrelevant, as Dr. Phil would put it. To being Desmond‘s cast-off wife. To
being someone that nobody loved anymore. ―There is no story except yours.‖
It was the bubble of the moment, the world I made in order to avoid seeing where I really lived.
―I‘ll be sorry to see it end.‖
Araiama shrugged. ―Perhaps there will be another.‖
―I‘m sure there will be,‖ I said. ―It‘s what I do.‖
―Not everyone‘s destiny is to wallow in romantic love,‖ Araiama said.
I laughed. ―Certainly not mine.‖
―There are all sorts of magic.‖
I looked at her through a haze of marijuana smoke. ―What does that mean?‖
―Only that one oughtn‘t to presume to know one‘s future, when she doesn‘t yet understand the
past. All sorts of marvelous things might still happen.‖
―Right. Sure.‖ It was insulting. That was the sort of thing you said to old people, delivered with a
hearty smile and a slap on the back: Hey, you’ve got years and years ahead of you! You never know what’s
going to come around the next corner, do you? Life’s full of surprises. Why, you might meet the man of
your dreams tomorrow!
―Thanks, Araiama. That was very original.‖ I took a deep drag. The fire made pictures on the
moving water of the lake. Before long Bebe jumped into it, as I knew she eventually would. Charlie took
up the post of deejay, and Rihanna‘s Umbrella rang out over the Tennessee hills.
Araiama disappeared.
(Extra Space)
No problem, as Charlie would have said. No problem at all until the next morning, when we all
turned up on the front page of the newspaper again, this time under the headline A Pagan Halloween.
Thanks, Naomi. Apparently, while we were all dancing around the shrine wearing bedsheets and
swathes of chiffon, Naomi, ever-eager girl reporter, had been taking photos with her cell phone. So much
for young love.
―Pagans!‖ Elsie screamed by way of greeting, waving the newspaper in my face. Indeed, the
good citizens of Beltsville were undoubtedly sick and tired of reading about the antics of those fun-loving
freaks in what the Valley Sentinel referred to as the Pagan Trailer Park. ―I won‘t be able to show my face at
the Bingo,‖ she lamented. ―And it‘s all your fault, Missy!‖ She waved a finger at me.
―I‘m sorry,‖ I blurted. ―I didn‘t know Naomi was planning such a thing.‖
―She‘s been promoted,‖ Elsie said with unnatural pride. ―To Features Editor.‖
It seemed like a non-sequitur. Elsie was angry with me for the article, but not at Naomi. ―Er...
great,‖ I managed, not knowing what she wanted to hear. ―I guess.‖
―Oh, you‘re just jealous,‖ she sniffed. ―On account of my Charlie‘s come to his senses about you.‖
That stopped me cold. For some reason, I‘d thought that Elsie didn‘t know about her son‘s
relationship with me. I felt my face burning with shame.
―It‘s better that the young stay with the young,‖ she said, patting my arm sympathetically.
―Um... right,‖ I said.
―Why did you leave your husband, anyway?‖
―I... ‖ I almost told her that he‘d left me, not the other way around, but I caught myself in time.
―What do you care?‖ I said instead, trying to sound intimidating.
Elsie shrugged. Success! I‘d managed to bully my ex-lover‘s white-haired mother into
submission, to bend her to my will, to show her who was the dominant personality here. ―Oh, hell,‖ I said
grouchily. ―It‘s too late to do anything about anything, anyway. Stupid newspaper.‖
―That‘s true,‖ Elsie agreed. ―Now everybody‘s going to think we‘re all witches like you.‖
―Witches?‖ I was stunned. ―Since when am I a witch?‖ Suddenly I was sorry that I‘d relented.
Things were better when Elsie was cowed and stricken.
―Well, it was you wanted to make an offering to Satan or whoever it was, wasn‘t it?‖
I felt as if I‘d been caught red-handed doing something desperately obscene. ―No!‖ I breathed. ―It
wasn‘t anything like that—‖
―Look, you run this place, you can do what you want. I don‘t care.‖ She shook her head sadly.
―It‘s just that I‘ve been a Christian woman all my life. This is hard for me. And I don‘t have anywhere
else to live.‖
―Come on, Elsie, it was just a picture in the—‖
―I have a ladyfriend goes to one of them strange churches,‖ Elsie interrupted. ―The kind where
they bring in snakes to prove if you‘re a sinner or not.‖
―I‘ve heard of them,‖ I said.
―If you get bit, you‘re a bad sinner, and that‘s your punishment. Then you‘re a good person
again.‖
―If you‘re not dead,‖ I couldn‘t help but add.
―That‘s about it. Me, I‘m a Catholic. They don‘t like that much down here, either, but it‘s
nothing like what you‘re doing.‖
―What I‘m doing? Listen, you‘re mistaken. That shrine...‖ I was going to explain how a character
in a book I was writing had blackmailed me, but I realized how demented that would sound.
―I told you, I don‘t care,‖ Elsie said with some vehemence. ―But there‘s people already fighting
mad about this pagan business, and I believe they‘re going to be coming after you.‖
―Me?‖ I swallowed.
―You know, you coming down here from New York or wherever, and you don‘t make any effort
to find out what people are like here, and then you‘re all shocked when they don‘t all want to adopt you
into their families or elect you president. Well, I‘m a stranger to these parts, too, always will be, but at least
I know enough not to put up heathen altars or go around sleeping with men half my age.‖ She threw the
newspaper at my feet. ―If I was you, I‘d call the police,‖ Elsie said. ―I don‘t want any crosses burning in
my yard.‖
Part VII
Samhain
November 1
The Festival of Darkness, when the Goddess departs for the Underworld and leaves her followers
to fend for themselves against the evil forces. At this time of year, animals are slaughtered to help ensure
the survival of humans through the harsh winter. The bones of the dead animals are placed in a heap upon
a great communal ―bone-fire‖ or bonfire, from which each household takes a burning ember to start its
own fire. Thus is hardship transformed into community. At Samhain, the veil between the living and the
dead is thin; past and present merge, and ghosts walk the earth.
Chapter Forty Six
Araiama
The 1000 Lives of Araiama Mari
For some time—months, perhaps years; I lost track of time so utterly that I honestly cannot
say—I simply floated, waiting for that ship to sink, or toss me overboard, or infect me with the disease
that had killed everyone else aboard. I had long ago consigned Povier and the others to the sea,
washing their bodies and weighting them down with the weapons on board so that they would sink and
not be washed, half-eaten, onto some distant shore.
As the endless days went on, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the Goddess’ response
to my prayer at the beginning of this journey. I had asked that our ship be protected, and it had been.
The fact that all the people on board died was the grim joke She chose to share with me now. Of all
the skilled and capable people who had embarked on this sojourn, only I, an old woman who had not
possessed the slightest desire to live, had remained alive. Oh, I had no doubt that the Goddess was
amused.
And so I drifted, through days and nights and heat and cold, eating when hunger drove me to
the obscenely full stores of nuts and dried meats and pressed fruits and grains only recently gone to
mold. Once I busied myself for a full day baking bread, only to see every loaf soaked and washed away
during a storm the following evening. Drinking water was no problem: Whoever had built the ship had
stationed enormous barrels of fresh water around the deck. They were covered by fine netting to keep
out birds and vermin, and placed far enough away from the rail to avoid contamination by seawater.
A fine journey, indeed. There were days when I felt myself falling into madness, lashing myself
to a mast during a storm, my skin prickling with the cold fire of nearby lightning, or running naked along
the deck, screaming into the sun, demanding that something either begin or end.
Shortly after Povier’s death, I cut off my hair. It had been crawling with lice. I leaned over the
deck as I sheared it as close to the scalp as I could, using a knife I’d found in the galley. Then I hauled
up a bucket of seawater and scrubbed my bald head until it bled.
I knew—that is, I believed I knew—that this sea voyage was the Goddess’ true punishment. I
had given myself over to death on the day that my arrogance and stupidity had caused the young
women who followed me to be murdered, but even then I knew that death would be an insufficient
penance for the magnitude of my wrongdoing. The Goddess had given those acolytes—those
children—into my care, and with a thoughtless disregard for their vulnerability, I had sent them to their
horrific doom. Knowing that death alone would not be enough to atone for my betrayal of them, I
condemned myself to live through countless generations of human history knowing, with each of a
thousand lives, that my existence meant nothing.
A thousand powerless lives. I thought that would be enough, but the Goddess does not
accept our versions of atonement. It was as if She said, I shall decide your punishment, Araiama, not
you.
I ceased to wear clothing. When the weather warmed, I took to wandering naked around the
ship like an animal, going up and down the stairs to the hold on all fours. I even began to eat meat,
tearing off handfuls from the salted haunches that hung in the storeroom. My degradation could not
have been more complete.
I do not know why I did not end my life myself during that long voyage of penance, with only the
shades of the dead for company. No, that is a lie. Eternal condemnation does have its good points,
among them a greatly diminished need to present oneself in a good light. The truth is, despite my
stalwart declarations about my willingness to die, I always managed to keep myself alive. This did not
occur entirely by accident, or by the grace of the Goddess, as I may have hinted. I have mentioned that
I ate the meat on board the ship. There was no other food left by that time. Mold and rats and the sea
had consumed everything else. Though they had been salted, the beasts’ haunches that hung in the
storeroom were foul, swarming with maggots. I ate them, too, toasting them over a small fire and enjoying
their crunch. You see, I was never so much the Goddess’ servant as I was a hungry peasant ever
watchful for my own survival.
If I had truly wished to die for the Goddess, this should have provided the opportunity. I could
have prostrated myself somewhere in the keel facing west, the direction of the Otherworld, and died in
prayer. Instead, I filled my belly with rotting meat.
And if the truth be told, I had other, equally ignoble reasons for wanting to remain alive. Aside
from my own selfish appetites, I knew that by killing myself I would be denying the Goddess the full
measure of my punishment. For some reason, She had wanted me to remain on this ship. She had
saved me from a barrage of flying spears and a plague so that She might exact a fitting punishment for
me, and I would not stop Her.
Also—and perhaps I am more ashamed of this reason than any of the others—I did not end my
life because of one small, childish thing: I was curious. Ever since I began my travels as Snake Finder, I
have always kept one eye on the next hill, the next bend in the road. Even then, in the Hell of my own
making, after the horrendous shambles I had made of my life, I was still looking for whatever gift the
Mother would bring. For they are all gifts, though some are terrifying and unwelcome. Even this
suffering. Even death. All of it, all, gifts of life.
Damn my soul, but I believe this still.
I knew I did not deserve any more of the Mother’s gifts, that my duty was to die, to end this life
in ignominy according to Her wishes, and yet a part of me fluttered like a bird every time I sighted an
outcrop of sea grass or the shiny, curved back of a dolphin. It was like peeking around that next bend
in the road. What lay ahead? I knew the answer: only death waited for me. Yet still, I wanted to see for
myself.
And so I hardly knew what to think—it had been so long since I’d had occasion to think at all—
when I spotted the long, shadowy, dream-like horizon of land in the distance.
Land. Was it land, or had my eyes become the servants of my madness?
I vomited. My bowels loosened. Then I waited, standing on the bow of the ship as it drifted
unerringly toward the end of the sea, the distant hills now rising up as far as I could see. I felt my throat
constricting. It was too far to swim, certainly. But if I did not, the ship I was on might list away and head
back toward the open sea. Indeed, even as the thought came into my mind, I felt the ship turning, so
slightly, away from the faraway shore.
―Mother, help me—‖ I began, then caught myself abruptly. If you truly wish to die... Perhaps
the Goddess wanted me to see the land that would save my life, see it but not reach it. As penance, I
could allow that green, lush stretch of land to pass from my sight.
Would that be enough? That, and my death, and the thousand powerless lives to which I had
cursed myself? Would it then be enough?
My gaze fell upon the oars that had long ago been abandoned as the ship’s crewmen fell one
by one to the sickness that eventually claimed them all. There was rope, I remembered.
If you truly want to die...
I closed my eyes for a moment. Even in my own mind I could not form the words, ―Forgive me‖.
I opened them again and ran for the rope in the hold, along with a large flat basket which I could use as a
paddle. Then, quickly, as the ship continued to drift out to sea, I lashed the oars together with crude
knots. Almost as an afterthought, I dressed myself in the ragged gown and cloak I had arrived in before
throwing my makeshift raft into the water, and then jumped in myself.
The ship shifted. In time, a fog drifted in and obscured the vessel from view. I struggled on the
raft, paddling with the basket until it fell apart in my hands, then kicking with my legs until I collapsed.
The fog swallowed me. I lost sight of the land. I could almost hear the Goddess laughing at my pitiful
efforts to stay alive.
After a time I fell, exhausted, onto the oars. ―As You will, Mother,‖ I whispered. My last
thought, foolish as it was, was of my hair. It had been a long time since I’d shorn myself. As I lay on the
raft, I watched it flopping into my eyes with every wave that washed over me, a great matted tangle of
gray and white, curly and wild-looking. When I dry, I shall look quite like a dandelion puff, I thought
comfortably as I eased into unconsciousness.
(Extra Space)
I do not know how long I drifted, asleep in spite of my desperate panic. Perhaps it was for no
more than a few minutes. Nevertheless, when I awoke the fog had lifted from the shore, and I was able to
see trees beyond the rock-strewn beach, which was very close. Immediately I rolled off the raft and felt
my feet touch bottom.
I wept as I walked the short distance to dry land. Never had I expected to leave that ship alive.
But you took the chance when you could, didn’t you? A sardonic voice inside me asked.
―Yes, yes I did!‖ I rasped defiantly, wiping the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand.
Had it been the Mother’s voice that spoke to me, or one of my own demons, borne of my pride and
guilt?
I did not know. I no longer had any inkling of what the Goddess thought of me, whether She
cursed me for a coward, or loved me despite my error, loved me so much that She brought me once
again to safety. All I knew was that I was once again standing on earth, and the scent of the earth and
her treasures filled me with gratitude. At the shoreline, with the sea still touching my feet, I raised my
arms toward the moon, half hidden in the fading sunlight, and sang the Song of Thanksgiving that my
tribe had sung so long ago, when Snake Finder stood beneath the waterfall with a serpent in either
hand and one coiled around her neck. We sang then because we had come at last to the place we
would call home.
It had not really been home, of course, except to those who died there. Perhaps that is all the
home any of us will ever know. For the sailors who perished aboard the nameless ship on which I sailed
for so long, the sea, though they might never have seen it before this last voyage, became their home.
They would not have said so; they would have mentioned faraway places with unpronounceable names,
the villages and countries of their birth. But the sea was where they went to spend eternity, just as this
fragrant, virginal land was where I knew I would end my days.
―I am Snake Finder,‖ I sang, my rickety old bones and wild hair drying in the sun. ―Snake
Finder the child, come home to you, O Mother.‖
Chapter Forty Seven
Victoria
Victoria Tanner examined the newspaper photo for signs of her daughter‘s presence while tuning
into Talk of the Town. The program, a community call-in show, sometimes offered clues about potential
real estate deals, discussing local news items such as business expansions and relocations, along with
opinions about local issues, which let Victoria know which way the wind was blowing. She made it a habit
to listen to the show every morning while she was having coffee.
―...take things too far. This is a church-going community, and while we’re all for freedom of
religion, I’d be hard pressed to refer to what these half naked people are doing as worshipping.‖
Victoria‘s ears pricked. The speaker, a Reverend Carlton Willet, Jr. from the Beltsville Church of
the Divine Redeemer, was talking about the picture in the morning newspaper above the headline A Pagan
Halloween.
―Elizabeth?‖ she called.
―What,‖ Liz shouted from her room upstairs.
―Don‘t say ‗what‘ when you are addressing me!‖ Victoria closed her eyes. She was not about to
engage in a shouting match with an adolescent girl at 7:30 in the morning. ―You didn‘t attend that pagan
Halloween thing at the trailer park, did you?‖ she asked sweetly.
Liz appeared at the top of the stairs. ―What pagan thing?‖
―It was in yesterday‘s paper. I didn‘t get around to reading it until now. Anyway, I‘m glad you
weren‘t invited. Maybe they‘ve found another little mascot.‖
Liz hitched up her backpack and thundered down the stairs. ―Let me see that,‖ she said, snatching
the paper off the kitchen table.
―Shh. I‘m trying to hear this.‖
―Reverend, I understand you’ve got a petition circulating already to close down Elysian Fields,
the mobile home community where the pagan ritual was taking place yesterday.‖
―Yes, sir, we’ve got more than thirty names already, and if anybody wants to sign up, we’ve got
some tables set up in front of the church and we’ll be passing out some free sweet tea, too.‖
―But Reverend Willet, isn’t that just a little—‖
―Are they protesting this?‖ Liz interjected shrilly, shaking the newspaper in her fist.
―I said quiet,‖ Victoria snapped.
―This is bullshit.‖
―Go to school, Elizabeth.‖
―Pure bullshit.‖ She threw down the paper and stomped toward the door.
―You apologize for that language this instant,‖ Victoria said unconvincingly.
―Bullshit,‖ Liz said, slamming the door.
―... dancing around this maypole thing. I mean, couldn’t it have been a joke, or some kind of
lighthearted look at Halloween?‖
―A lighthearted look at Halloween would be pumpkins and kids dressed as ghosts and day-glo
skeletons,‖ the Rev. Willet said stolidly.―Not Satan worshippers.―
―Well, Reverend, in all fairness, we don’t know if that’s true.‖
―Oh, it’s true, all right. For years, that place has been a hotbed of homosexuality and all manner
of wild doings. It’s why the last owners left. Now, I’m not going to go into the particulars here on the air,
but a lot of you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Marcozzis were good people, members of the
Church—‖
―You’re referring to the Church of the Divine Redeemer.‖
―Yes, I am.‖
―Which, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the location we’re talking about, sits right next
to the Elysian Fields trailer park.‖
―It certainly does. And everybody who wants to come to worship services at the church—if they’re
coming south on Highway 33, anyway, has got to drive right past that sorry pit of twisted sin to get to us.‖
―That sounds kind of Biblical, Reverend,‖ the host said jocularly. ―Kind of like life, you might
say.‖
―That’s a fact, Bob. You got to pass by the dregs of Hell if you’re going to reach salvation. But
these people are just blatant in their disregard for decency. They drove away the old owners, as I said, and
the new owners are just as bad as the tenants.‖
Victoria glanced at the clock, then turned off the radio. She felt a fluttering in her stomach. Her
breath was coming shallowly and fast. This would work. Yes, it would.
(Extra Space)
That evening, Victoria dressed carefully in a silk blouse with a keyhole opening in front to show
her breasts, and a tie to cover them. Below, she wore a black pencil skirt tight enough to follow the curve
of her buttocks, along with a pair of stiletto heels. Man hunting clothes.
Unfortunately, they were wasted on the Reverend Carlton Willett, who appeared to be between the
ages of 80 and 100, and evinced little interest in Victoria‘s wardrobe. He was, however, intensely
interested in the information she brought with her.
―You mean it‘s not even a legal trailer park?‖ He seemed incredulous. ―Are you sure?‖
―Oh, there‘s no question about that. I sold Mo Owens the property.‖
―Are you telling me that those people don‘t even have the right to be there?‖
―Well, I suppose Mrs. Owens can have anyone she likes on her property, as long as they‘re not
paying for the privilege.‖
―And you think they are?‖
Victoria shrugged. ―There seem to be quite a number of people living there.‖ She smiled. ―Don‘t
you think?‖
The Reverend looked Victoria over for a moment, scrutinizing her. She had the uneasy feeling
that he was going to stick his fingers in her mouth to check her teeth. But the moment passed, and he
smiled at her through a pair of double dentures gone gray with age.
―I know just the fella to head up this project,‖ he said, patting her hand. ―You just wait here, little
lady. I‘m going to bring him right over.‖
Victoria helped herself to one of the treats provided for the reception, a section of hot dog wrapped
in bacon. As she sucked it off its toothpick to roll around in her mouth, she scanned the room for potential
clients. Slim pickings, she decided. These were poor people, poor in a way even other poor people could
not relate to. To be poor in the rural south was a poorer state of poverty than most people could imagine.
She glanced at the faces of the church members, guessing at their lives: living in banged-out
trailers or abandoned vehicles, with a torn quilt over the window to keep out the snow in winter. A chicken
or two scrabbling in the grass, fighting with rats alongside a pile of junked cars. Eating cornbread and sour
milk, and the chicken if it was Christmas, when you‘d get a pair of socks in the morning. Carrying your
mother‘s babies around, a new one every year, until you got sick at the sight of them.
―Oh, you’ll be getting your own soon enough, miss high and mighty, I seen you around the boys.‖
And church. Going to church because it was clean and free, and even though people looked at you
like you were trash, sometimes you got cake or sweet tea or pieces of hot dog wrapped in bacon.
She spit the contents of her mouth into a paper napkin and threw it away.
―So you got yourself knocked up after all, did you? Guess that’ll be the end of your grand ideas.
Think you’re ever going to go to college now?
Victoria took a sip of tea to quell the nausea that had suddenly come upon her. It was these
people, she decided. They stank.
She needn‘t have dressed for the occasion at all. As it was, she would have to have the outfit she
was wearing cleaned. Otherwise, it would always smell like church.
(Extra Space)
The Beltsville Church of the Divine Redeemer was a cinderblock building in the middle of a
square of pavement abutting Route 33. Rev. Carlton Willet helped build the church with his own hands in
1957, when he was a twenty-year-old farmhand known simply as Carlton Jr. At that time, his future seemed
to be set: His was to be a life of farming and, in lean times, occasional work at various other trades in
which he might be called upon the spread the Word. As a short order cook at the Blue Ribbon Café, he had
refused to work on Sunday mornings, as it would have taken time away from worship. As a maintenance
man at the EZ Rest Motel, Carlton Jr. had held a tenant whom had had witnessed smoking marijuana by the
throat against a wall until the transgressor agreed to be baptized.
In another region of the state, perhaps, or in a later time, a person of Carlton Jr.‘s religious zeal
might have been considered strange, or even frightening. But in the area of Middle Tennessee where he
lived, in the days before the Internet or air conditioning, when telephones had four numbers and only the
wealthy few possessed them, the Church was the center of all things civilized, and a man like Carlton, who
knew the word of God and could, he found, blast it like a trumpet when necessary, was sure to get an
audience.
Carleton Jr. had been preaching, ex officio, since anyone in Beltsville could remember. For a
number of years he was a loyal member of the Church of the Divine Redeemer Jesus, which his uncle,
Wilson Willet, had founded when Carleton was ten years old. The boy had been instrumental in those early
services, collecting money in a big glass fishbowl so that everyone could see what everyone else had
contributed.
Even at that young age, Carlton had a sense that money and drama were what made a church
successful. In Beltsville Tennessee, Methodist and Presbyterians, even Baptists, and most certainly
Catholics and other foreign religions were looked upon with some reservations, if not downright hatred.
Church was where you grew up. Your whole family spent all its free time there, as did your
neighbors, and anyone who didn‘t wasn‘t welcome in your house. There was no point in making friends
outside your church, since they would be going to hell, anyway. Once Carleton‘s mother had cried for a day
and a night because her sister had gotten married at First Baptist down in Chattanooga, which might as well
have been the Vatican in Rome, Italy, for what it was doing to the woman‘s soul.
―She‘s damned forever,‖ Carleton‘s mother sobbed over and over. ―She ain‘t never going to get
her mansion in heaven.‖
―But why, Mama?‖ Carlton had wanted to know. ―She‘s still a Christian, ain‘t she?‖
―‘Bout as Christian as Satan,‖ his father, Carlton Sr. answered.
Carlton Sr. was not a preacher, because his older brother Wilson had beat him to it, and had
therefore been obligated to turn over a good portion of his income to Wilson for the establishment of the
Church of the Divine Redeemer.
―Goldbrick,‖ Carlton Sr. would mutter as they mortared cinderblocks atop the bubbling tar of the
newly paved blacktop while Wilson preached in town, seeking members for the new church. It was unfair
that the Carltons Sr. and Jr. would have to perform backbreaking labor while brother Wilson was given the
relatively easy task of preaching, but all of them acknowledged the necessity of this separation of duties.
The population of Beltsville in 1947, when Carlton Jr. was ten years old, was too small to maintain more
than one church.
There were others, of course. The Baptists, at least, would build a church on any plot of land big
enough to support a building, but that was because they had enough money to maintain services even if no
one attended them. Independent churches were different. They had to succeed to exist, and competition was
not welcome.
The conception of the Church of the Divine Redeemer began with the closing of the Holy Church
of Blessed Jesus, which had been by far the most well attended church in the southern Beltsville area before
the state police followed through on a report that a member of the congregation had died after being bitten
by a copperhead during a Sunday morning worship service.
Snake churches were illegal even then, but nevertheless popular, the theory being that the degree
to which one could dominate the snakes—or serpents, actually, as these religious rites were concerned only
with poisonous species, being representative of the Devil – was a gauge of one‘s piety. If a person could
master the serpent , which was to say either avoid being bitten altogether or at least recover from the
encounter, then he or she was deemed worthy in the eyes of God. Sometimes, either out of consideration
for their neighbors or outright cowardice, people brought ―milked‖ snakes, whose venom had been
somewhat neutralized, to serve as mere symbols of God‘s foe in the garden of Eden as their handlers set
them loose on their bodies. But more often they showed up with fresh-out-of-the-woodpile vipers – timber
rattlers, copperheads, canebrakes, and cottonmouths –with evil temperaments and fangs dripping with
poison.
This was unfortunately the case in the incident at the nearby Holy Church of Blessed Jesus, when
a parishioner named Nathan Entwhistle pitched a 20-inch, freshly caught copperhead overhand, hitting
John Stockwell (whom Entwhistle claimed owed him money) square on the side of his face. The snake
coiled around Stockwell‘s neck and bit him directly on his carotid artery. He was dead before the preacher,
who ended up serving three to five alongside the perpetrator, could start praying.
At any rate, the incident created a spiritual vacancy in the community, and Wilson Willet was
about to fill it. However, after a few years, membership in the Beltsville Church of the Divine Redeemer
dwindled nearly to zero. This was not in any way the fault of Brother Wilson, who was hardworking and
faithful to his calling. His sermons were long enough to be worth a trip to church, and he arranged to have
plenty of banana bread and sweet tea served afterward. The problem was that, after the histrionics at the
Holy Church of the Blessed Jesus, plain old preaching, without even the hint of possible death, seemed a
letdown. Yet what could he do? Tennessee had passed a law in 1947 prohibiting the public handling of
poisonous snakes, and arrests were made. The state police were watching the Beltsville area with particular
interest after the Stockwell/Entwhistle incident. At the very least, the person who had alerted the law—a
person as yet unknown, although Clel Stockwell, brother of the deceased John Stockwell, was strongly
suspected – was still at large.
After twenty long and unprofitable years, Wilson Willett stepped down from the pulpit, assigning
the leadership of the Church of the Divine Redeemer to his nephew, Carlton Junior.
―You‘ll owe me twenty percent of the take,‖ were Wilson‘s final words to young Carlton before
heading to his sister‘s house in Chattanooga.
Carlton Sr. shook his head.
―Daddy—‖
―Don‘t look at me,‖ the elder Carlton cautioned. ―It‘s your stink to sniff.‖
―But didn‘t you want to be a preacher?‖
―Not a broke preacher,‖ his father said, grinning. ―Old Wilson, he‘s got naught to his name but
the streak on his drawers.‖
It was true. Even his wife had left Wilson. And since he had not been ordained in any recognized
faith, Brother Willet was not welcome to preach in any church besides that of the Divine Redeemer, in
which the utilities expenses were greater than its income.
―But what about all the members?‖ Carlton Jr. pressed. ―How‘re they supposed to get to heaven
without their church?‖
Carlton Sr. thought about this for some time. ―You know, that‘s a good point you got there,‖ he
said at last. ―I can see you‘re cut out for the religious life, after all.‖ He slapped his son on the back.
The unexpected compliment caused Carlton Jr. to experience a wave of righteous awe. ―Maybe
Jesus‘ll take care of it,‖ he said humbly.
―There you go,‖ his father said. ―Now go slaughter the big hog out back.‖
Chapter Forty Eight
Carlton Willet, Jr.
As it turned out, not Jesus but Norma Jean Entwhistle took care of the problem laid at young
Brother Carlton‘s feet. In 1977, Norma Jean, the wife of convicted murderer Nathan Entwhistle (serving a
sentence of thirty to life at the Middle Tennessee Correctional Facility for the murder of John Stockwell),
approached the home of Clel Stockwell, brother of the deceased, and shot him twice in the face with a .12
gauge shotgun.
The reason for Norma Jean‘s homicidal fury was not, as most people believed, a burning desire for
retribution: She did not kill Clel Stockwell because he had alerted the state police to the ophidian
shenanigans of the Holy Church of the Blessed Jesus, which had resulted in her husband‘s incarceration.
Actually, Mrs. Entwhistle, a regular and devoted methamphetamine user, was paying a visit to her
supplier, Clel (or ―Lightning‖, as he was known to his clientele) Stockwell in a mindless but needy rage,
with the shotgun in lieu of cash. She had planned only to threaten Clel with the firearm while she picked
up enough meth to get her through the day; but once he opened the door to his doublewide and she saw his
brown-toothed smile and sunken eyes, Norma Jean‘s nostrils flared with psychotic omnipotence.
―Get out of my way,‖ she ordered Clel‘s inert body as she kicked it aside with a strength she
proudly recognized as superhuman. The meth was on the kitchen table, a couple of rocks bigger than
anything Clel had ever sold her, while the Red White and Blue was cooking on the stove. Clel had been a
busy dude, she thought, chortling. There was a glass pipe on the table, too, but Norma Jean opted for a
sheet of aluminum foil instead as a smoking instrument. She didn‘t want anything in her mouth that had
touched Clel‘s horrific teeth. She placed one of the crystals on the foil and lit it with her Bic lighter,
immediately feeling the fumes rushing into her body like tentacles of pure joy.
―Chasing the white dragon, baby,‖ she said, hearing the harshness of her voice. She smacked her
dry lips. Her head felt as if it were going to explode. In a good way. Oh, yeah. ―Chase the… oh, shit.‖ The
Red White and Blue was only Red, red phosphorous boiling away. The blue iodine was next to the stove.
The ephedrine was still in the funnel.
Hadn‘t she turned the stove off? Of course she had. Or Clel had. Asshole, she thought, you don’t
answer the door while you’re cooking meth. Just the same, she had better turn that down to a simmer before
the fumes got too bad. Had Clel answered the door? Or had she shot through it? Chasing the white, and
flicking the Bic. She wondered if she should have gotten high before she came. Hell, yes. She hadn‘t even
still been high then. It had all worn off, and she was getting sick. Getting sick and feeling mean. But no
longer. Now it was all good. Feeling hot down there, down there, hot fire in my Bic. Jesus Christ, that‘s
some heavy fumes, didn‘t she turn off the fire the Bic the heat oh yeah, down there, chasing down
(Extra Space)
Mary Jean had been so close to the source of the explosion that no remains of her body were
recovered. Of course, the police hadn‘t been looking for her at the time, and when she was eventually
reported missing, no one thought to connect her to the meth lab blowup in Clel Stockwell‘s doublewide.
Only Carlton Willet, Jr. saw the occurrence as the providential gift it was.
Nathan Entwhistle, psychologically unstable thrower of poisonous snakes in public places, was
safely behind bars. Nathan‘s ostensible enemy, John Stockwell, unfortunate victim of Nathan‘s misplaced
wrath, was dead. John‘s brother, Clel, who had in fact sought revenge for his brother‘s murder by siccing
the cops on Nathan and the church in which the snake-tossing took place, had now also gone to his reward
in a massive meth-related holocaust. And Norma Jean Entwhistle, politically innocent methamphetamine
addict and erstwhile agent of God, had vanished. There were no more links to the fiasco at the Holy Church
of the Blessed Jesus.
The Smokies were out of the picture, and the Beltsville Church of the Divine Redeemer was at last
free of the constraints of the United States government.
Finally, after more than 30 years of penury following Carlton Jr.‘s first appearance in the pulpit,
the membership of the church increased tenfold. His sudden popularity was due to a single factor: Snakes.
The snakes had come back, and had brought the people back to God.
(Extra Space)
They came in discreetly, carrying small white wicker baskets made by a member of the
congregation. During the service, the snake-bearers sat somberly, extolling an occasional ―Amen‖ or
singing the old hymns that everybody knew the words to. Everyone knew what was kept in those white
baskets, and though nothing was said, a simmering tension nevertheless built slowly but inexorably. The
passion incited by the service must have been much as it might have been during the Middle Ages, when
the Mass, the unquestioned highlight of the week in the lives of the congregants, flowed smoothly from the
hopeful strains of the Kyrie into the bombastic Gloria and onward to the complex majesty of the Credo.
Although the membership of the Beltsville Church of the Divine Redeemer would have found no
parallels whatever between their divinely inspired worship and the sections of a European Mass, the
buildup of religious fervor was every bit as predictable and anticipated. Just about the time the Sanctus
would have begun, in the deep pause following the moving words of Carlton Willet Jr.‘s sermon, the
snakes began to stir. Many believed that the reptiles were speaking for Satan. The hands of the snakebearers became increasingly agitated as they fondled the flimsy white cages.
Satan in your hands!
These were the words they were waiting for.
―And I say unto you,‖ Carlton Jr. intoned: ―that these signs shall follow them that believe!‖
―Amen,‖ someone said as the first of the snake handlers stood up. A buzz of anticipation
electrified the room. The handler took his white wicker basket to the assigned place behind the altar, where
stood a large bin made of plywood and stained mahogany red, with a hinged lid that sloped like the surface
of an old-fashioned writing desk. The handler lifted the lid and, in one deft movement, dumped the contents
of the basket into it.
―In my name shall they cast out devils!‖ Carlton, Jr., now known respectfully as Preacher Willet,
said.
―Hallelujah!‖ Six or seven men and one woman rose as one, then marched toward the hinged box,
into which each placed a freshly-caught viper.
―They shall speak with new tongues!‖
The congregation shouted in unintelligible fervor.
―They shall take up serpents, and the poison shall not harm them!‖ This last was a paraphrase of
the passage in Mark, which also condoned swallowing poison, but Carleton Jr. was nervous enough about
allowing snake handling without putting the idea of glugging down strychnine into their heads as well, at
least for the moment.
―You who hold Satan in your hands,‖ Preacher Willet boomed, sincerely hoping that his voice
would not crack during this most holy of moments, ―Are you prepared to do battle with Darkness?‖
The eight people at the altar nodded solemnly as the congregation shouted and cheered. The lone
woman among the handlers crossed her arms over her chest with grim determination. Carleton Jr. knew
her. She was Emma Poss, the wife of a farmer down by Lambertsville.
Emma had caught her husband at the Tally Ho last November with a whore on his lap, and gave
him the beating of his life right then and there. Old Poss ended up spending two nights in the hospital
afterward. The fracas even made it into Talk of the Town. Everyone knew this wasn‘t the first time she‘d
walloped him, either. Old Poss was always a pitiful sight, with blackened eyes and long scabs along his
head. Many had speculated that after the Tally Ho fracas, Poss would finally divorce his homicidally
violent wife, but nothing ever came of it. He continued to accompany her around town, bruised and
bleeding, while Emma lumbered along proudly, like a wrestler dressed in puff sleeves.
―I say, are you prepared to do battle with Satan?‖
―We are prepared!‖ the handlers pronounced. Emma Poss‘ voice rang above the rest as she
pushed aside the men and flung open the pinewood box.
As she reached into the box with her bare muscular arm up to its beefy shoulder, there was no
sound in the room except for the symphony of breathing that filled the space: fast, shallow, fearful,
excited, aroused. And then Emma, triumphant, climactic, pulled eight hissing and venom-filled serpents
from the box. The congregation screamed. A woman fainted, although no one paid her any mind because it
was Maxine Hollis, who fainted every time she wanted attention, and had made a practice of fainting in
church since the days of her girlhood in the Holy Church of the Blessed Jesus. Maxine would have fainted
even if Emma Poss had pulled out just one snake, so her performance was wasted in this truly heroic
demonstration of Christian devotion.
The vipers ranged stiffly, as if they were made of wire. Emma did not hold them near their heads,
as you would if you were collecting them from the wild and were trying not to get bitten, but allowed them
to move freely from the centers of their slithering, tubular bodies. Her big hand could barely contain them,
and one or two jumped toward her face in clear attack positions.
Preacher Willet suffered a moment of anxiety in which he rehearsed a statement to the
investigating authorities in the event of the woman‘s death, but soon realized that it would take more than
eight mad vipers to do in the redoubtable Emma Poss.
―Get thee back, Satan!‖ Emma shouted loud enough to cause a buzz in the overhead fluorescent
lights.
The congregation cheered and stamped their feet as she threw the serpents disdainfully back into
the bin before adjusting the sleeves of her dress and returning with regal dignity to her place in the first
pew.
―Thank you, Jesus,‖ Preacher Willet said with truly heartfelt gratitude. Mrs. Poss had just ensured
the survival of the church.
Chapter Forty Nine
J.J. Johnson
And it had indeed survived, for more than three decades. The pinewood bin was now gone from
sight, brought out only once a month, at a special service following the Wednesday night faith healings,
when it was certain that no visitors were present. The snake service was restricted to ―elders‖, a term
reserved for snake handlers with no ties to the state police and no criminal records. In fact, by the time
Victoria Tanner stopped by to discuss the continuing menace of the Elysian Fields Mobile Home
Community, there were some members of the Church of the Divine Redeemer who had no idea that snake
handling even went on under the sanctified roof of what had become the best-attended, most respectable,
and richest house of worship in the Beltsville area.
The older members of the congregation continued to refer to Carlton Jr. as Preacher Willet,
although he now preferred the more mainstream-sounding Reverend as a title, and had even taken on a
young man in the position of Associate Pastor to help out with some of the lesser responsibilities of the
church. Now the two of them, Reverend Willet and his preacher-in-training, J.J. Johnson, walked in tandem
through the crowd that had gathered to protest the goings-on at the trailer park next door.
Whoever was with the old man was a hunk, Victoria thought. Movie star teeth. How old would he
be? Thirty five? Forty? No, not forty. Well, thirty five wasn‘t too young. She herself was thirty eight,
although she knew she passed for thirty, maybe younger. As she caught the man‘s eye, she smoothed her
hands over the taut fabric of her skirt. This may have been an occasion for man-hunting clothes, after all.
―Ladies and gen‘men,‖ Reverend Willet announced, throwing up his arms for silence. ―I just want
to tell y‘all how much we at the Beltsville Church of the Divine Redeemer appreciate you coming out today
to show your support for our worthy cause.‖
J.J. Johnson inhaled sharply. There was a woman, new, blonde, looking at him from the food
table.
―I think most of you are here because of this morning‘s broadcast of Talk of the Town,‖ Reverend
Willet was saying, ―and we are especially grateful to the people who brought that radio show to you, as it
has resulted in more than forty new signatures on the petition to get that godless pagan trailer park away
from our children and young people.‖
There was spontaneous applause all around. The pastor smiled, turning his head slowly to face his
second in command. His nostrils flared. His eyes narrowed with the sheer pleasure of absolute power. J.J.
suppressed the urge to spit. The old man was drinking in the adoration of the crowd like some South
American dictator.
He took a deep breath and concentrated on the blonde. She looked to be on the far side of forty,
but still had a good body, due to obvious self discipline. Her well muscled arms were a testament to daily
workouts. She wore no stockings, just bare legs, runner‘s calves bulging over fuck-me high heels.
―Satan‘s nest has been exposed!‖ Reverend Willet intoned, causing a number of people to shift
around uncomfortably. In his old age, the preacher tended to look for every opportunity to launch into a
sermon. ―And with the help of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, ladies and gen‘men, I promise you, it will
be destroyed!‖
―That‘s great, Reverend Willet,‖ J.J. said genially, taking the old man by the elbow. ―Now, who
was it you wanted me to talk to?‖
―Oh,‖ Willet said with some annoyance. He had just been getting started. ―Over there. The
woman. I‘ll introduce you.‖
J.J. snapped down the lapels of his jacket. Oh, yeah, she was ready. He could smell her across the
room.
(Extra Space)
J.J. Johnson was the heir apparent to the leadership of the Church of the Divine Redeemer. This
meant that he opened the doors in the morning, vacuumed the carpet, cleaned the bathrooms, typed the
bulletin, paid the bills, repaired the plumbing, and kept the books – all before going to work at the
Beltsville Police Department as a part-time law enforcement officer. In return, J.J. was entitled to sit in the
apse next to Reverend Willet. This informed the congregation that, should the Lord one day call Preacher
Willet home, the Church of the Divine Redeemer would remain the great bulwark of faith at the heart of the
community and ensured its members entrance into the gates of heaven.
This, J.J. knew, was what was so hard to get outsiders to understand. Yes, there were places called
churches in Chattanooga and Paris and other big cities, but they were buildings, buildings filled with
strangers who heard the same things that people a hundred miles away were hearing. Jesus got watered
down in places like this, where the man in charge learned everything he knew about preaching in some
school that was supposed to teach you how to lead a congregation to the Word of God. But nobody can
teach that. It‘s just a gift, plain and simple, and either you had it or you didn‘t. And if you didn‘t, there
would be no shouting with the Holy Spirit in this building you called a church. There would be no quaking
with fear at the prospect of damnation.
No, the places where nothing went on but polite silence were not churches. They were socials.
Church was bigger than that. Bigger than Sunday, bigger than a twenty dollar bill in the collection plate.
Church was your eternal soul, laid on a razor‘s edge every minute of every day, and the man in the pulpit
was responsible for that soul.
That was why the line of succession was important, and why J.J. toiled tirelessly and thanklessly
in the background while that old windbag Carlton Willet (or ―Preacher Willet, as the geezers called him, as
if the old cock could preach his way out of a paper bag) got the glory. But they would see soon enough. In
a place like Beltsville, where God was more than a nod to respectability – or ought to be – only two things
were needed to maintain a church. One was the Bible. The other was a Preacher.
Not a minister, one of those boring men with a black robe and a degree from some university on
his office wall. The Lord didn‘t care if a man could spell Salvation, if he knew how to bring it to his flock.
And no piece of paper could make a man into a Preacher. He had to be called to it. He had to get people to
listen to him, and then he had to get them to follow him wherever he preached, and then he could build a
church that would provide the structure for everything in their lives. That was a Preacher.
The Preacher made the rules. It was up to the Preacher to interpret scripture, and if he decided that
the Old Testament wasn‘t worth reading, then no one in the congregation owned a Bible that was dogeared
before Matthew. The Preacher was the church, and if the Preacher died without selecting an heir, the
church died with him, leaving the congregation to scramble like ants in a rainstorm.
And so J.J. Johnson, part-time member of the Beltsville police department (only Ray Lontz, the
Chief of Police himself, was full time), had accepted the post of Associate Pastor and all its attendant
unpaid duties, because he knew that in time – and not a very long time, since Reverend Willet was eightythree years old and had developed polyps on his vocal cords –he would be sitting one chair nearer the
pulpit.
Then he would receive whatever money the church made after expenses, and that would be
enough to buy a house as nice as Reverend Willet‘s four-bedroom colonial without having to give out
traffic tickets.
The thought put him in a better mood. As a bonus, the horny blonde by the hot dogs must have
thought his beatific expression was for her, since she smiled darkly at him, licking her lips and sticking out
her titties like the Whore of Babylon.
(Extra Space)
―Why, here you are, Miss… Mrs…‖
―Tanner,‖ Victoria said, extending her hand to the Reverend while keeping her gaze on his blueeyed companion. ―Victoria Tanner. Er… Mrs.,‖ she added. ―I‘m a widow.‖ Which was in a way true,
since Mr. Tanner had been dead to her for some time.
―I‘m sorry to hear that,‖ J.J. commiserated smoothly, taking Victoria‘s hand as he introduced
himself.
―J.J. here‘s my right hand man,‖ Reverend Willet said. ―He‘s the one going to figure out how to
use what you told me about those folks next door to our advantage.‖
―To God‘s advantage,‖ J.J. corrected.
The Reverend narrowed his eyes in annoyance. For that remark, he decided, J.J. – for Jackshit
Jackoff, the arrogant little pissant – Johnson was going to get a little extra duty visiting the old lady shut-ins
this week.
But Victoria and J.J. were no longer paying any attention to Reverend Willet. It was hot in the
room, and a line of sweat had formed on Victoria‘s upper lip.
―I think we have a lot to talk about,‖ J.J. said, inhaling the aroma of hot dogs on her breath.
(Extra Space)
As the weather cooled and people began to drift back inside their dwellings, Forrest and
Katherine‘s trailer fairly shook with portentous sounds from the gigantic speakers Forrest had placed there.
After hearing Liz Petrovsky sing the Lament of the Virgin (formerly known as the Tsunami Song), he was
inspired to use the virtuoso solo as a centerpiece for an entire oratorio, and was banging out sacred music
day and night. When he wasn‘t composing at the keyboard in the trailer, he was at work on a computer at
Liberty High School or, with Katherine‘s assistance, on the big pipe organ at St. Peter‘s.
It was to be a Christmas oratorio, he‘d explained to Father Gordon, who agreed to hold the concert
in the church on the Saturday before Christmas. Forrest also arranged to include parts of it in the Liberty
High Concert Chorus and Orchestra concert. The students, particularly Liz, formed the core of his
performers, augmented by community members and the St Peter‘s choir.
The music lent a festive air to Elysian Fields, and Bebe began to light bonfires every evening. The
firepit was near enough to Mo‘s shrine so that its red painted crossbar shone in the firelight. Before long, it
became an evening ritual for whoever was free to sit by the fire for a while, listening to the music blaring
from Forrest‘s buzzing speakers.
It was into one of these campfire evenings that Henya and Richard appeared. They had been holed
up in Henya‘s Airstream for days, and everyone knew what had been going on between them.
Katherine, ignoring very strong internal social signals (which had been cultivated within her like
penicillin in a petri dish) to jump up and make the couple feel comfortable, instead withdrew into the
shadows of the bonfire. She wasn‘t sure how she felt about this man, a husband who would replace his
errant wife so easily.
And with Henya! Katherine might have understood it if Richard had gone off on a binge of
prostitutes and strippers, but not with someone who was as dumpy, meek, and unmanicured as the woman
who walked unobtrusively beside him now, wearing the same hairdo she‘d had since grade school. She
didn‘t even possess the questionable allure of being a Negress, Katherine thought with a sniff. Henya was
more taupe-colored than black. And that hair! Katherine just couldn‘t get past that. It was a sort of bad-hair
version of a bob that an unpopular white girl might have worn in 1985. And as far as anyone knew, Henya
didn‘t even own a pair of high heels. Reasonable or not, this was not the sort of woman Katherine wanted
to lose Richard to, especially since Katherine was still sleeping alone.
―Katherine?‖ Richard approached her shyly, walking slowly behind the fire with Henya in tow.
Katherine gave herself an emergency once-over: Eileen Fisher menswear-style wool trousers,
seafoam blue cashmere turtleneck, antique Tiffany watch, Bass Weejuns, one-carat diamond studs.
Unmemorable, but acceptable. Henya, she saw, was wearing J.C. Penney jeans and a red sweatshirt with a
decal of a snowman emblazoned over her chest.
―I… I hope this isn‘t too awkward,‖ Richard said. There was an odd smile on his face that
Katherine couldn‘t quite place. She couldn‘t recall the way Richard normally smiled, but it wasn‘t like this.
He looked ten years younger than he had two weeks ago.
Katherine‘s eyes filled with tears. Her husband was finally, truly in love. She knew this because
he had never looked this way around her. ―Richard,‖ she whispered.
―Oh, God, Katherine,‖ he stammered. ―I didn‘t mean to-‖
She took a deep breath. The training of a lifetime could no longer be ignored. ―Can I get you both
a cup of tea?‖ she asked, her smile in place. Then she hugged Henya and clasped Richard‘s hand.
Henya was stiff in her arms. ―Are you sure you‘re all right with this, Katherine?‖ she asked
meekly. ―Because I would understand if you weren‘t.‖
―I know,‖ Katherine said. ―You always do.‖ She smiled again, and it was no longer forced. ―But
now it‘s my turn.‖ She looked into Henya‘s brown, unmade-up eyes, and acknowledged two distinct
feelings within herself. One was defeat, plain and simple, and the fact that she had cheated first had
nothing to do with things. The other was an intense, certain sense of relief. Her husband, who for thirty
years had been a better friend to her than she ever deserved, was in good hands.
The other people sitting around the fire watched in fascinated silence, surrounded by all the sounds
in the sky around them: the crackle of the fire, the drone of the traffic on Route 58, the whoosh of the wind
in the trees, the faint lapping of the lake, and above it all, the tinny, grand chords of Forrest‘s oratorio.
Their eyes all shifted toward the trailer, bright with light, emanating music.
―It will be a wonderful Christmas,‖ Katherine said.
Chapter Fifty
Mo
The 1000 Lives of Araiama Mari
There is not much more to tell, except for Ixlata.
I never left the strange land to which the Goddess brought me. I never encountered another
human of my own race. I never heard my native tongue spoken again.
When I awoke after my first night on land (after what I now know was more than two years at
sea), I found two freshly killed rabbits inside a carefully laid circle of blue stones. I had never seen such
stones before, and saw nothing resembling them in the surrounding forest. From this I surmised that the
stones were of some special spiritual significance, and that whoever had put them beside me, along with
the rabbits while I slept, wished me no harm.
As I felt certain that I was being watched, I raised the rabbit high over my head and bowed to
the four directions: east, to the wind and air and sky, the realm of spirit; south, to fire and heat and the
lords of passion and will; west to water and healing and the Otherworld; then north, paying homage to
the earth and her creatures.
After I cooked the rabbits, I placed a haunch onto a pile of rocks I placed in the center of the
circle of blue stones as an offering to the Goddess, or whatever gods my benefactors followed. I ate
enough to fill my belly, then wrapped the rest of the cooked meat in reeds I found along the riverbank.
These, too, I wove into a mat and used as a carrier. I hung the skins from the rolled ends of the mat so
that they would dry as I traveled. Finally, before I left, I collected all the blue stones except one. This I
left beside the haunch of meat, along with a nutshell filled with clean water. Then I went on my way,
following the river upstream.
(Extra Space)
The stone was returned to me three days later, along with a basket of nuts and a blanket of
soft woven wool. The blanket was a welcome change from the reed mat I’d made for myself. Even
though the weather here was much warmer than I was accustomed to, it was clear that this was the winter
of the year. The trees, though not bare, were hung with brown, dry leaves across endless hillsides, and
at night the ground grew instantly cold. I would have to set up a camp for the deep winter, I supposed.
It is difficult to plan for any life after one has forsaken life itself. Ever since the defining day
when my children died as a result of my poor judgment while I slept, I have been prepared to die, and
only to die. And yet I have spent nearly as many years after that cursed day as before it. That is the
nature of this particular, self-imposed curse, I suppose: I asked for a thousand powerless lives, so that I
may never again wield enough power to harm so many souls. And it has already begun. From that day I
have been tossed back and forth between life and death so often that I am beginning to see it as a joke,
as something the Goddess thought up to remind me of the foolishness of both my life and of my fistshaking, self-important curse.
For despite my constant claim to seek the peace of death, each time I have been faced with it, I
have made a decision to live. Sometimes it was an active decision – jumping off the ship to swim to land
– and sometimes I was just fortunate, although I certainly would not have described myself as such in
those days. But the truth is, each time I had a choice, I chose to live. No, not merely chose. I leapt,
fought, clung, sucked onto life like a leach frantic for blood. I knew this at last, in the wild country where
I was destined to finally end my long years on mortal earth, in that place at the end of the world where
my only companions were ghosts and invisible witches. This, I understood with more than a little irony,
was how the Goddess amused herself.
Because, despite my hard-won understanding, I was still cursed. It was the condition on which
my curse was based. Had I been an ordinary woman, the curse may never have been granted. The
Goddess would have dismissed it as the whim of a foolish human, which it was. Unfortunately, this
foolish woman was a high priestess of Mari, and Mari was displeased with her.
Still, I did not regret it. I knew, in those last days, that life is more precious than any of us
know. So precious that it does not matter if one is a high priestess or a powerless fool, it, like they, are
the same.
These were my thoughts when, one starry, sleepless night, I opened my eyes to see the
beautiful, startled face of a young girl. She was clearly confused about whether to go or stay, but only
her eyes moved. She remained crouched beside me, every muscle in her thin body tensed. I admired her
courage. Then her gaze fixed on me – she’d overcome her fear – and I saw everything.
I sat up slowly. Her features were so different from any I had ever seen that I thought perhaps
I was mistaken, but I was not. ―You’re sick,‖ I said, touching the center of her forehead with my middle
finger. She understood me. It was why she had come.
Her people could not help her. Of course, neither could I. No one could have looked into
those eyes and seen anything except death.
―You left the gifts for me,‖ I said, indicating the blanket wrapped around me and the rabbit
pelts on my feet.
In answer she produced a blue stone. I touched her face. Beneath the clear brown skin was
the gray specter of he wasting sickness. ―I’m sorry,‖ I said, shaking my head. ―Usually, it’s the old who
are affected with this. It always kills.‖ I thumped my fist over my heart.
She nodded. Her jaw tightened. She was a brave child.
How old was she? I wondered as she stole away into the woods. As old as Willow when she
was raped again and again, until she bled to death? Or Momo, whose eyes were plucked out before
she was put to the sword? Oh, Goddess, this was too cruel, even after my sins. To send me another
dead girl child! Oh, no. Oh no, no, not this.
I removed my rabbit skin shoes, shrugged off the warm blanket around my shoulders, and left
carrying only the reed mat I had made.
(Extra Space)
Good God, I thought, Araiama is the toughest old bird who ever lived.
And there I was being psychotic again. Yo, Mo, Araiama, once and for all, DOES NOT EXIST.
Her telling you her story is you telling the story. But then that‘s the whole point, isn‘t it? She claims that we
are the same person, or soul, or whatever. I am Araiama, in her 1000 th incarnation, so of course I would
remember her story. Because it‘s my story, the only one I‘ve ever really had. The other books I‘ve written,
according to Araiama, were all Desmond‘s. Desmond‘s ideas, Desmond‘s wish list of books he wished he
could write, if he‘d had the time, the energy, the focus, the sobriety. So he gave them to me like tasks
devised by the gods, tasks with which I might win his love. Write me a novel by deadline, and I‘ll love you,
I promise. Write me a bestseller, and I‘ll love you forever.
He would never be so crude as to suggest the arrangement, though. I came up with that idea
completely on my own. After all, what did one book matter? Or ten? Or a lifetime‘s worth of stories that
he, not I, wanted, for rewards that he, not I, would receive.
My thousandth powerless life, I thought. No wonder I came up with such a massively selfdestructive thought so easily and without the faintest hint of foreboding. Being a good person was the right
way to go. Personal ambition only led to unhappiness, said the Buddhists. I wasn‘t a Buddhist, of course,
but the lackadaisical-sounding philosophy seemed to fit in with the way my life was going. Desmond was
my husband, my literally better half. I owed it to him, adding my 40% talent to his 60%, making up the
shortfall by doing 100% of the work.
A powerless life.
I pushed myself away from the keyboard, threw on my jacket, and grabbed my car keys. I wanted
to get away from Araiama‘s tentacles that had worked their way into my life like tumors in flesh. This was
how my mind worked, I realized: I could only process the failure of my marriage and my life through a
second persona, Araiama, whom deep in my gut I must believe is really me. Whether she is fictional or
biographical is irrelevant. She is still me.
I drove to Starbucks, which seemed like an anticlimax to such a revelation. As I ordered a
particularly silly sounding concoction, It occurred to me that, at this stage of my life, this was just about as
reckless as I was going to get. God, I was pitiful.
I drank my 1200-calorie beverage so quickly that I felt compelled to linger for a few minutes just
so I wouldn‘t feel that my trip had been utterly pointless. I’m people watching, I told myself. I‘m a writer.
I‘m working. Oh, yeah. After a suitably boring interval of pretending to be artistic and engaged in life, I got
into my car.
It was difficult. A police cruiser was parked so close to me that I could barely open the door, but I
finally squeezed in and, cursing the Deputy Dawg so eager for his evening latte that he nearly shaved the
paint off my fender, I peeled out.
Dawg followed me. I swear, in my rearview mirror I saw two policemen run – and I do mean runout of Starbucks and into the cruiser. Within thirty seconds, they were right behind me. I kept right so that
they could pass me on their way to whatever was so urgent, but the cruiser just kept riding my rear. I
slowed down. So did Dawg. I turned right onto Dolly Pond Road, a few miles from home. Weirdly, he did
too. I slowed to a crawl. That was when the cruiser‘s flashers came on and the siren blipped.
―What the hell is this?‖ I whispered, allowing myself a hint of the outrage I would never have the
courage to show a uniformed officer. No, for him, as for my husband before him, for all men who had ever
wished to put me in my place, I would cower and speak meekly. I would smile in what I would hope was a
winsome manner, hoping for mercy. I composed myself, waiting for the officer.
It took a full ten minutes for him to approach me. ―Ma‘am,‖ he said grimly, nodding his head
slightly. He was tall, Nordic, excessively clean. Blue eyes, cold, assessing. His name tag read J.J. Johnson.
―License and registration.‖
―What‘s the problem?‖
He squinted at me. ―What did you say?‖
I swallowed, trying to hold down my fear. I hadn‘t done anything wrong, I told myself. Had I? ―Is
something wrong here?‖ I asked, my voice sounding embarrassingly squeaky as I handed over my papers.
He stared me down. When I looked away, he deigned to speak. ―Are you aware that you are
driving without a current emissions sticker?‖
―A… a what?‖
―Your license plate should have a sticker on it indicating that this vehicle has passed current
emissions standards.‖
I looked around. ―The car‘s less than a year old,‖ I said. ―I‘m sure it would pass any emissions
test.‖
―But there‘s no sticker, is there,‖ he said, a challenge. His chin shot up so that his nostrils were
aimed down at me.
―No, well… I didn‘t know I was supposed to get one. Does it come in the mail or something?‖
―Supposed to,‖ the officer said. ―But it‘s your responsibility to get one.‖
―I didn‘t even know about it. I‘m pretty new here—―
―I know where you‘re from,‖ he said.
It felt as if my heart had stopped. My license was from Tennessee, not New York. ―You do?‖
―Not a lot of secrets in a place like Beltsville,‖ he said.
I tried hard to force a smile. Maybe, despite everything my gut was screaming, he was a nice guy
after all. Maybe we could have a conversation. Maybe he‘d let me off for this big crime I‘d committed if I
promised to get the stupid sticker immediately.
―Where were you going, Mizz Owens?‖ he asked, curling his upper lip.
―Home,‖ I answered flatly. There was no point in denying the feelings in my gut. The sooner I got
this over with, the better.
―Home,‖ he repeated ruminatively. ―That would be at the pagan trailer park now, wouldn‘t it?‖
I sighed. ―The name of the trailer park which was formerly on the property I purchased was named
Elysian Fields,‖ I said, not looking at him.
―And do you deny, Mizz Owens, that there are homosexuals among your people?‖
―What?‖
―Do you deny that you yourself are divorced?‖
I was sputtering. ―What the hell does that have to do with –‖
―That you have white people having sexual relations with people of color? That there are orgies
held in your place of residence? That you corrupt young girls by having then flaunt their bodies in public?
That you harbor practitioners of perverted acts and Satanic inclination to live on your property? Do you
deny that these servants of the Devil disguise themselves as school teachers and church organists so as to
further influence the youth of this community to commit evil?‖ His voice rose in volume with each
accusation until he was shouting in my face. ―Do you dare to deny these things, Mizz Owens? In the
presence of God Almighty, DO YOU?‖
I was stunned. I tried to speak, but no sound came out of my mouth.
―Why...‖ I rasped at last, ―Why are you doing this?‖
―Because I am an officer of the law, Mizz Owens,‖ he said, quietly, his face registering utter
disgust. ―And you are a law breaker.‖
I closed my eyes. This couldn‘t be happening. ―Somehow I don‘t think this is about my emissions
sticker,‖ I said.
At that moment two headlights came to a stop behind me, filling my rearview mirror with blinding
light. ―Get out of the car,‖ Officer Johnson snapped.
―Sir,‖ I tried, ―I don‘t know what‘s going one here, but –‖
The blue eyes flashed in anger, a warning. ―Ma‘am, I am requesting that you exit your vehicle so
that it can be towed, in accordance with state regulations.‖
Indeed, the headlights in my rearview belonged to a tow truck. In the mirror, I saw the driver get
out and attach a large hook to the back of my car. I couldn‘t keep the incredulity off my face. ―I can‘t
believe you‘re doing this,‖ I squeaked.
He continued as if I hadn‘t spoken. ―Your license plate has been removed, and will be sent to the
state. You will have to apply for a new license. If you are issued one, you will be permitted to retrieve your
vehicle after paying the appropriate fee at Miller‘s garage.‖
―Miller‘s?‖ I asked. ―Where‘s that?‖
―Approximately twelve miles from here.‖
―Twelve miles? You‘re having my car towed twelve miles away?‖
―The other garages are either closed at this time or full.‖ He pulled his lips tight to conceal his
glee.
―This can‘t be legal,‖ I said, searching for my cell phone.
―Keep your hands at your sides and get out of the car,‖ he commanded.
―All right, all right.‖ I put my hands in the air as I stumbled onto the road, feeling as if I were in an
episode of America’s Most Wanted. I swallowed hard. This guy was clearly abusing his authority, and I
wasn‘t going to stand for it. ―Officer, I am a law-abiding citizen, and what you are doing –‖
―What I am doing is to stop you from continuing to violate the law,‖ J.J. Johnson said loudly, as if
to emphasize his position as upholder of justice, then handed me a ticket before signaling the driver of the
tow truck to hoist up the back end of my car.
―At least let me get my purse,‖ I said, ashamed of the note of pleading I heard in my voice.
He reached in, picked it up, and dropped it at my feet.
As the tow truck lumbered off dragging my car, Officer Johnson turned his back on me and,
without another word, began to walk back toward the police cruiser, which immediately revved to life.
Apparently the other officer inside it felt no need to assist J.J. Johnson in my apprehension.
With a sigh, I picked up my handbag and rummaged in it for my cell before remembering that I‘d
left it in the charger.
―Wait a second!‖ I called, running after the officer. ―I hate to bother you after all your kindness –‖
I tried to sound as sarcastic as possible, as if that would make anything better – ―but if you‘re going to
leave me in the middle of nowhere, could I at least use your cell phone?‖
―No ma‘am. That is for official use only.‖
My fingernails were tearing through the ticket still in my hand. ―Where can I get to a phone?‖ I
asked dully.
―Starbucks might have one,‖ Johnson said as he got into the squad car. ―You remember where that
is, don‘t you?‖ He was smiling.
The cruiser peeled away, showering me in dust. Neither of the officers gave me a backward
glance.
The next day I would lodge a complaint with the Chief of Police, who would apologize for Officer
Johnson‘s overzealous actions, although there was nothing to be done at this point about the ticket, the
removal of my license plate, or the impoundment of my car. He would explain to me that, because of
budgetary restrictions, he was saddled with a force consisting of part-time officers, some of whom were
more trouble than they were worth. Fortunately, though, the Chief was due to retire in another year, and
this headache would then be a thing of the past. For him, that is. It was pretty clear that the malicious
games of his ersatz police force would continue against whoever got in the way, whether it was I (whose
greatest crime seemed to be that I was divorced from a famous man) or gay Ned, or adulterous Katherine,
Catholic Elsie, biracial Henya, or any of the other outcasts who had gravitated to the Pagan Trailer Park.
To appease me, the Chief would allow me to write a letter of complaint against Officer Johnson,
promising that if two more such complaints were to be placed in Johnson‘s file, his further employment
with the Beltsville Police Department would come into question.
It had almost sounded as if the Police Chief were on my side. Almost.
All this would occur within twenty-four hours of my first encounter with the badge-sporting
preacher I would come to know as J.J. Johnson. But at the time, when I was standing on the side of Dolly
Pond Road with the police car‘s exhaust fresh in my nostrils, all I could think of was the parting image of
Johnson smiling. He‘d known before he ever pulled me over that I wouldn‘t be able to do a thing about it.
My powerless life, I thought.
Chapter Fifty One
Victoria
Victoria had only required one additional encounter – a Wednesday evening prayer meeting – to
get the Rev. J.J. Johnson into her bed. In fact, as soon as they‘d left the church grounds, he‘d reached
across the seat of his Chevy pickup and thrust his hand up her skirt.
―‘Scuse me, ma‘am,‖ he said, sliding his fingers slowly down her thigh. ―I was reaching for the
gearshift. Guess my hand slipped.‖ A slight smile broadened his lips.
―Keep your hands to yourself, preacher man,‖ Victoria said, showing with her eyes that she meant
the exact opposite.
―Oh. Reckon you didn‘t like it, then.‖
―I didn‘t say I didn‘t like it,‖ Victoria said. She turned toward him on the bench seat, her legs
opening fractionally wider. ―I just told you to keep your hands to yourself.‖
He grinned. ―That‘s not the signal you were sending me in church.‖
―Well, it‘s the signal I‘m sending you now.‖ She turned further, feeling the strain in her back, so
that he could better appreciate the space visible between her thighs.
J.J. sucked in air. ―Ooh, Mama.‖
There was a sheen on him, something clean and white and predatory, something more than a little
dangerous. Victoria felt herself getting wet just looking at him while they bounced over the rocky terrain
separating the church grounds from those of the trailer park.
―Stupid prick,‖ J.J. said absently as the first rickety mobile homes came into view. He was
referring to the magistrate who, when requested to close down the Elysian Fields on grounds of moral
turpitude, had denied the petition signed by seventy two members of the Church of the Divine Redeemer.
The magistrate had cited that neither the owner of the property, Mari Owens, nor her non-paying guests had
run afoul of the law. ―I can see forty infractions just with my two eyes right now,‖ J.J said. ―They‘ve got an
open firepit over there, no lifeguard at the lake, and dozens of code violations the county Health
Department ought to shut them down for. It‘d already be done down in Altha. They don‘t fool around with
half-assed magistrates.‖
―Is that where you‘re from?‖ Victoria asked. ―Altha?‖
―Maybe,‖ he said, grinning. He grabbed a handful of her thigh. She slapped him away playfully.
―How do you know they‘re infractions?‖
―What?‖
―This place. How do you know it‘s full of Health Department infractions?‖
J.J. slid his eyes toward her. ―‘Cause in addition to being a preacher, Miss Victoria, I am an officer
of the law.‖
―A cop? I mean, a policeman? You‘re really a policeman?‖ Victoria‘s brain began to fire in
strange new directions. A cop. Influence. Protection. Two salaries. Three, counting hers. The sexy
preacher was becoming more marriageable by the second.
―Yes, ma‘am.‖ He took off his tie. Without his jacket, which he had removed before getting into
the truck, he was dressed in a blindingly white shirt under whose short sleeves peeked the bottoms of a pair
of bulging biceps. ―Skinny-guy buff‖ was how Liz would describe J.J.‘s physique, Victoria mused. Thin
but strong, in a useful, sexy way. On one muscle was the lower half of what appeared to be a long,
serpentine tattoo. Victoria reached over and, with her fingernail, lifted the edge of J.J.‘s sleeve.
The tattoo was very elaborate, with a network of vines and spade-shaped leaves surrounding a
white cross inside a circle. Beneath it was one word, undulating in Black Forest script: Unconquerable.
Well, what do you expect from a southern preacher, Victoria thought, hula girls and death heads?
She let the sleeve drop. ―You like tattoos?‖ she asked.
―Got a couple.‖
Suddenly Victoria straightened in her seat. ―Go over there,‖ she said, pointing to a couple who
were walking toward Mo‘s cabin. She thought that the woman might be Henya, and it was. Richard Davis
was with her. ―That bitch,‖ Victoria said. Then apologetically, ―Sorry. But if you weren‘t a man of God –
not to mention a police officer – I‘d ask you to run her down.‖
―Who, that pickaninny?‖
Victoria filled him in on her version of the humiliation she‘d suffered at St. Peter‘s Episcopal,
when Henya and her so-called adoptive father had forced her away from her own daughter and then
virtually slammed the door in Victoria‘s face. ―I should have called the police right then,‖ she added
bitterly.
―Sounds like maybe your daughter don‘t know who‘s on the right side,‖ J.J. said.
―Oh, I can‘t talk to her. It‘s those trailer trash freaks she listens to, not her mother.‖
―Well, we‘ll see about that,‖ he said pleasantly, gunning the pickup so that it roared over the road,
spewing gravel and a cloud of dust as it bore down on Henya and Richard, who scurried out of the way.
With a screech of tires, J.J. brought the truck to a halt and got out.
Henya was covering her nose and mouth with the heavy cardigan she was wearing. Richard was
frowning, standing a little in front of Henya as if to protect her. J.J. walked slowly, deliberately, his thumbs
hooked over his belt. ―Are you aware that you are trespassing on private property?‖ he asked.
They both looked at him blankly for a moment. Then Richard said, ―We‘re here visiting a friend
of ours. You‘re the one who‘s trespassing.‖ He squinted at J.J. ―Who are you, anyway?‖
J.J. smiled, his blue eyes crinkling in the winter sun. ―Why, I‘m the guy going to put you all
behind bars,‖ he said affably.
Henya looked past him into the truck. ―This is Victoria Tanner‘s idea,‖ she said.
Richard raised his chin. ―Look, we don‘t live here, so you can leave us alone.‖ He crooked his
head toward the road. ―I‘m going to ask you to get out of here before I call the police.‖
―Well, that might pose a little problem,‖ J.J. said, whipping out his County Sheriff‘s Department
I.D., ―because I‘d be the one you called.‖
Just then Mo appeared, striding from her cottage toward them. ―Hi, is everything –‖ She stopped
in her tracks.
―Why, howdy Ma‘am,‖ J.J. said. ―Get your car out of that pound okay? Maybe I ought to take a
look at it, make sure you got an emissions sticker on your bumper.‖
―Are you here on official business?‖ Mo asked.
―No, ma‘am. Just being neighborly.‖
―Then get off my property.‖
―Fair enough,‖ he said, his pleasant expression never leaving his face. ―Enjoy it while it still is
your property, ma‘am. Because it‘s not going to be too long before it‘s the property of the Church of the
Divine Redeemer.‖
―I doubt that.‖
―Never can tell,‖ J.J. said. ―Life‘s full of surprises, ain‘t it?‖ He nodded once, courteously, and
sauntered away.
Extra Space
They went back to Victoria‘s house, where J.J. took her against the front door. ―I knew you didn‘t
wear underpants,‖ he said, pulling up one of her knees as he rammed into her.
―How‘d you know?‖ Victoria panted.
―Just the look of you. A slick hot woman.‖ He was hard all over, his buttocks, his neck, his hands
that positioned her for his pleasure and then held her down while he took it.
―A hot slick woman,‖ she repeated, savoring the compliment. ―You like that, don‘t you.‖
Smiling, he hiked her skirt up to her waist. ―I like this.‖ He slipped both arms behind her knees,
holding her in mid-air, her legs spread wider for him.
―Oh, preacher man,‖ she moaned, just before the doorbell rang.
―Mom?‖ Liz‘s voice, accompanied by impatient pounding. ―I can‘t get in.‖
Victoria gasped, involuntarily squeezing J.J. out of her like a sausage.
―Mom? You there?‖
Victoria lost her balance and tumbled to the floor. J.J. hurled himself against the door, member
still erect and quivering, trousers around his ankles.
―It‘s stuck or something,‖ Liz called.
―You‘re not supposed to be here,‖ Victoria said breathlessly, scrambling to her feet.
―Hey, could you just let me in?‖
―Just a second, okay?‖
―I‘ll go around back.‖
―No! I mean… Oh, for Christ‘s sake,‖ Victoria muttered as she fastened her bra, put on her shoes,
and straightened her skirt.
―You said she was out for the night,‖ J.J. whispered.
―She was supposed to be!‖ Victoria hissed.
The kitchen door creaked open and slammed shut. ―So what‘s the deal with the…‖
Liz stood in the archway between the dining room and the living room, where her mother stood
smiling frozenly, flushed and wild-haired. ―Hello, Elizabeth,‖ Victoria cooed in soft round tones.
Liz looked J.J. up and down.
―This is the Reverend J.J… That is, Jay…‖ She realized at that moment that she had been having
sex with a man whom she knew only by his initials.
―Johnson,‖ J.J. finished, smiling and sliding out his hand. ―How you doing, little lady?‖
Liz snickered. J.J. withdrew the hand, then the smile.
―Liz!‖ Victoria admonished.
―I have homework.‖ She shambled toward the stairs. Papers and clothing seemed to leak out of
her. Watching her, Victoria‘s embarrassment at her own compromised situation was overshadowed by a
much more commonplace feeling of annoyance at her daughter‘s slovenly appearance.
She placed her hands on her hips. ―Why are you here?‖ she demanded stridently.
―Glad to see you, too,‖ Liz said, thumping up the stairs.
―You dropped something,‖ Victoria shouted. ―A bunch of papers just fell out of your notebook.‖
Liz ignored her. The bedroom door slammed.
―She knows I hate it when she slams the door.‖ Victoria took a deep breath, clasped her hands
together, and turned to J.J. with her oversized, welcoming realtor‘s smile. ―This doesn‘t mean you can‘t
stay,‖ she said with relentless cheer.
He shook his head. ―Another time.‖ He jutted his chin toward the stairs. ―Without Baby Huey,
okay?‖
The smile faltered slightly. ―That wasn‘t very nice.‖
J.J. chuckled. ―Don‘t get so serious,‖ he said. ―Tell you what. If you give me the name of that
colored girl up at the trailer park, I‘ll run her through the system. See if I can find anything on her.‖
―You won‘t,‖ Victoria said. ―Little Miss Churchmouse.‖
―Oh, you‘d be surprised what some of them good girls got going for them. He winked. ―Know
what I mean?‖
―Well, you can try.‖ She wrote Henrietta Yauch Follett on a piece of notepaper with the Beltsville
Realty logo across the top and gave it to him.
―Hell, she‘s black,‖ J.J. said. ―There‘ll be something.‖
―I have a computer here,‖ Victoria offered, trying not to sound desperate. ―I mean, you could
stay.‖
J.J. slid his eyes toward her. ―Where?‖
She was confused. The computer was directly behind her, obvious and in full view. ―It‘s right –‖
―Here?‖ he asked softly, pulling her back by her belt. She fell against him. In one movement, he
hiked up her skirt and entered her from behind, galloping her as if they‘d never been interrupted. J.J. pulled
her close to him and whispered hotly in her ear, ―What do you think of your preacher man now?‖
(Extra Space)
He was seated at the computer when Liz came down the next morning. She paused at the bottom
of the stairs, struck by the sheer masculinity of this man. He was wearing no shirt, and even seated, the
musculature of his body stood out beneath his skin. Liz noticed the elaborate cross tattoo with the macho
word Unconquerable on his shoulder, but more interesting still was the black marking at the top of his
spine. She moved closer to get a better look, conscious that he was not aware of her presence.
There was something enjoyable about her anonymity. This man, whoever he was, was the adult
version of the coolest boys in school, the jocks, the tough guys, the bad eggs headed for trouble. It wasn‘t
the groups they belonged to that made them cool; it was… well, this, the easy animality of this man who
was sitting half-naked in her living room, hairless and slick, smelling faintly of sweat, and utterly
unconcerned with what anyone else in the world was doing. Such a man would never be hers, Liz knew.
There were too many pretty girls in the world for these prize males to choose from.
The tattoo on his neck was enigmatic: A number, 88, small but artfully wrought. The website he
was looking at – a news site of some kind -- was one Liz hadn‘t seen before. Well, duh, she thought, what
did she expect him to be looking at, The Superficial? As soon as she saw her own reflection on the screen,
it went blank. He turned around in a smooth, fast motion. Liz jumped back, suddenly fearful, but the barechested man was wearing a big smile, showing good teeth against perfect skin.
―Why hello there, little lady,‖ he said, holding out his hand. ―J.J. Johnson.‖
―I‘m…‖ She was going to say sorry, but for what? For being rude last night? For spying on him,
when he was clearly looking at something online that he didn‘t want anyone else to see? For creeping up on
him like a stalker? For drooling over his hot bod? For wishing that her mother, who had obviously been
fucking the hot bod all night, would get run over by a bus? Holy crow, it was eight o‘clock in the morning,
and there were already so many things to be sorry for that she didn‘t know where to start. ―…Liz,‖ she
managed at last.
―Well, I‘m very happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Liz. I apologize for looking the way I do,
but your mama keeps it awful hot in here.‖
Yeah, I’ll bet she does. Liz thought as J.J. put on his shirt, still blazingly white, and buttoned it up
to the collar. This guy had spent the night porking her mom, and he wasn‘t even slightly embarrassed about
it.
That‘s what it meant to be cool, she guessed. Not caring what anyone thought. Knowing you had
the best body in the room. Being absolutely certain that you could get anyone you wanted to do anything
you wanted.
―What say we go join your mama in the kitchen for some breakfast?‖ J.J. suggested, making Liz
feel lucky that he was talking to her. ―I smell bacon.‖
―Me, too,‖ Liz said. Her mother never cooked bacon. Or anything else that didn‘t require a
microwave. ―I guess you rate.‖
He winked at her. ―I just need to make one little stop at the men‘s room.‖
She giggled, feeling instantly stupid. He patted her shoulder. Liz blushed. When he was out of
sight, she heard herself exhaling, as if she‘d been holding her breath.
―Oh, stop,‖ she muttered aloud, then ran back to the computer and restored the screen. The site‘s
home page came up. STORMFRONT, it read.
Chapter Fifty Two
Mo
I dreamed that I was Araiama, alone in the wilderness. The Native American girl had bone cancer;
I knew that in the dream. I was cold without my blanket, but I could not accept it from the girl whom I had
refused to heal.
Not refused. I – Araiama -- would have helped the girl if I could have. But there were no potions
for a disease so advanced. Perhaps in the summer, I thought, I could brew a palliative of white willow bark
and red clover and opium poppies, if I could find them, to ease the pain.
Oh, how foolish! I knew perfectly well that Ixlata would not live out the winter. I could see in her
eyes that she herself knew it. And that was what bothered me the most. Neither the girl nor her father had
asked for a palliative. They did not know me as a healer. They had never heard of Snake Finder. They
wanted me for my god, the deity who had brought the strange tall woman to their shores, perhaps in answer
to their own prayers. Their need for me was not as a physician, but as a priestess – the one thing I could no
longer be.
―I am cursed,‖ I told them in the dream in which Mo Owens and Araiama Mari were one and the
same person. ―The Goddess will not hear me. She no longer favors me. I am cast out of the circle of magic.
That was why I have been sent, alone, to this desolate place at the end of the world. Will you not
understand?‖
But of course they could not. The dying girl and her father only looked at me with imploring eyes.
They had seen my brief ritual to the Mother when I‘d waded to shore. It had been automatic, unthinking:
After so long at sea, I had given thanks for my deliverance.
But it had not been deliverance. It had been exile.
The father produced a tiny bell from the folds of the blanket he wore across his shoulders and rang
it.
Not exile. His thoughts, ringing through the bell, spoke to me. Your Goddess has brought you here
for my daughter. She is the beginning.
The bell sounded again.
―The beginning of what?‖ I shouted to be heard above the shrill ringing. ―Of my thousand
powerless lives?‖
He rang the bell again.
―Stop it!‖ I shouted. ―I told you, I can‘t do anything for you! I can‘t –‖ The bell rang again. ―I
can‘t even do anything for myself, for chrissake! Stop that ringing!‖
I sat up in bed, my face so wet with sweat that my hair was sticking to it like wet ribbons. The
telephone on my night table was ringing. ―What… what, hello?‖ I said, fumbling with the receiver.
For a moment there was no sound on the other end of the line.
―Shit,‖ I said.
―Mo?‖
My breath caught.
―Mo, it‘s Desmond.‖
It took me a moment to find my voice. ―Yes, I know,‖ I said at last. ―Are you all right?‖
He began to sob. Drunk. I heard the click of a cigarette lighter (was it the gold one with the flame
pattern that I‘d bought him the last Christmas we were together?) and a swift inhalation of air.
―She left me, Mo.‖ He sounded so miserable. ―Said I didn‘t have enough of a career left to bother
with. The bitch! Worthless cunt.‖ The line was silent for a while. I didn‘t want to respond to what had
always been, in my experience, a lot of hot air. Come morning, Desmond probably wouldn‘t even
remember calling. ―Oh, come on, Mo. Talk to me.‖
Oh, hell. I sighed. ―Why are you doing this?‖ I asked.
―Because you always help,‖ he said. ―Please help me. I‘m lost. I don‘t have anything left. I miss
you, Mo. Mo, Mo.‖ I could hear him blowing his nose.
―What do you want me to do?‖
―Just talk to me, darling,‖ he said between sobs. ―Tell me I‘m an ungrateful shit, because it‘s true.
Tell me you hate me. Anything, so long as I can hear your voice again.‖
―Desmond,‖ I said in a whisper. I wished this weren‘t happening. I was wide awake now, my heart
beating loud, my fingers and toes tingling.
―Please forgive me, if you can find it in your heart. I was so wrong. Wrong to you. Wrong about
Toni. Wrong and wicked and stupid about so much. I‘ve ruined everything.‖
―Nothing is ever… really…‖ I swallowed. Don’t, I told myself. Don’t fall into this hole again.
And then I started talking, as if my voice were connected to another person. ―Nothing is ever really ruined.‖
Connected to another person without a brain. I hated myself for saying those words, for meaning them, for
wanting them to be true.
I had almost managed to stop hoping. Hoping and hurting and wishing that I could turn back the
years to before Desmond had… before everything had gone so wrong. My whole point in moving so far
away from him was to rid myself of the unreasonable longing for what I knew I could not longer have,
because it was a longing for something that no longer existed. I had stuffed my love like a metal spring in a
can, pushing, pushing, struggling to screw a lid on the past so that it could not leap out and hurt me again.
But I could feel the lid loosening now, my fingers weakening, the spring creaking within.
―You are all I have ever loved,‖ he said.
Two burning tears rolled down my cheeks. ―Desmond, don‘t –‖
―We can start over.‖
―Please—‖
―No, we can. I‘ve learned. I can make you happy. I know it.‖
―This isn‘t the time. We can talk later. Maybe tomorrow.‖
He moaned.
―Desmond?‖
―Haven‘t you missed me, Mo? Just a little?‖
I had no more words. I had to hold the receiver away from me while I wiped my eyes on my
pajama sleeve. ―How…‖ I croaked finally, ―how did you know where I was?‖ I was trying my hardest not
to blurt out some foolish declaration of love to this man who had heard them all before.
―I called your publisher. They didn‘t even know if the number was still current. It seems you
haven‘t been your usual punctual self with your latest manuscript.‖
―I suppose not,‖ I managed.
―You write better with me,‖ Desmond said.
Adding to the many unpleasant feelings coursing through me came a sudden flash of anger. ―You
don‘t know how I‘ve written without you.‖ I said coldly, swiping at my still-drippy nose.
―That‘s because you haven‘t written anything.‖
―I have! It‘s just –‖ No, I thought. I don’t care what he thinks. I don’t even care if he’s right.
―Forget it.‖
―They said you were in Arkansas or someplace.‖
―I‘m in Tennessee.‖
―Can I fly there, or do I have to come on horseback?‖
For a moment, I ceased to function. When I remembered to breathe again, I choked. ―You want to
come here?‖ I sputtered.
There was a pause. ―I want to be wherever you are, every minute of every day. If you go to the
moon, I‘ll follow you there. Bury yourself in the ground, and you‘ll find me beside you. I‘ll never let you
go again, Mo. And if you think I don‘t mean what I‘m saying, then you don‘t know me at all.‖
I squeezed my eyes shut. No, no, no! This was my place, my beginning, my new life, my terrible
life, my lost life… ―When will you come?‖ I squeaked.
―Tonight. I‘ll get on the first plane I can catch.‖
I gave him my address and directions from the airport.
―Will you wait for me?‖ he asked.
―Yes.‖ My limbs felt as if they‘d turned to water, and my heart seemed to have swelled to fill my
chest.
―I love you, Mo.‖
Oh, God, I thought, yes. Yes yes yes. ―I love you too, Desmond.‖
There, it was out. I had tried to live without Desmond, but it had been no use. I couldn‘t write,
couldn‘t think, couldn‘t connect with anyone or anything. I had only been marking time in this place,
wasting my precious life by pretending to soldier on without the driving force of my soul.
And now he was coming. Coming back to me.
Suddenly the world made sense again. I would accept him without recriminations or regrets.
Nothing mattered anymore except that we loved each other, had always loved each other, belonged
together.
Belonged.
(Extra Space)
I bathed, dressed, and carefully put on makeup, even though it was 4:30 in the morning. I played a
Madeleine Peyroux CD that set the tone I wanted – romantic, flirtatious, yet fundamentally somber and a
little world-weary. Perfect music for a love gone wrong and ready to heal. I tidied up the cabin, fluffed
pillows, lit candles, then blew them out. Too early. It occurred to me that I should have suggested a hotel
near the airport. That would have saved driving time, and might have been more to Desmond‘s taste. He
had never been overly fond of the country. The cabin was musty, so I built a fire.
At six AM, I put on my coat and walked outside to collect some pine branches. They would smell
good in the fire.
At eight, I made some mulled cider – he would be cold from the trip – then thought better of it and
added a gallon of wine to the brew. Then I thought better of that, and set out a bottle of vodka. At nine
thirty I looked up the status of every flight from New York to Nashville, Atlanta, Memphis, and
Chattanooga. No accidents. At eleven in the morning I fell asleep on the sofa, still in full makeup. A pall of
smoke lay like a blanket around me, reeking of the cold fireplace.
(Extra Space)
Two days later I called Desmond‘s number. He answered on the sixth ring, sounding groggy and
irritated.
I couldn‘t think of anything to say. With a curse, Desmond hung up.
Chapter Fifty Three
Henya
Victoria had become an avid churchgoer since first receiving her real estate license. For years, she
made a point of attending one service at every church in the Beltsville area in order to sign the visitor‘s
book, making a note in the margin that she urgently wished to receive whatever publications the church had
available. In this way, she managed to keep up with virtually all the deaths and relocations within her
purview. She had gotten contracts to sell a number of properties just by being the first realtor on the spot.
But the news from the St. Peter‘s Community Newsletter was not about a move or a death. It was,
in fact, a one-paragraph article bordered by stars with holly sprigs decorating the corners, concerning a
Christmas oratorio composed by St. Peter‘s own Director of Music, Forrest McCormick.
The concert, titled ―The Gift of Christmas‖ was to be presented on December 21, and was to
feature soprano Elizabeth Petrovsky singing with a chorus comprised of the St. Peter‘s Chancel Choir, the
Liberty High School Glee Club, and assorted community members. Additional musicians or singers
wishing to participate should contact Mr. McCormick at ext. 431 before December 1.
Victoria‘s anger was like a tide that came in, wave after swelling wave. The betrayal! Liz had
promised her that she would have nothing more to do with McCormick or the other members of the trailer
trash brigade. Well, perhaps not promised, exactly – the girl was dissolute and headstrong, qualities she had
probably inherited from her lummox of a father – but she had not refused her mother‘s ultimatum. Oh, what
difference did it make if the child had agreed or not? She, Victoria, was the penultimate authority here, and
she had forbidden Elizabeth to sing.
―I am your parent, not your friend,‖ she said aloud. It was a mantra she used often, lest either she
or her daughter be misled into believing that any part of their relationship might be construed as friendly.
First she went to Liberty High School, where she insisted that Liz be pulled out of class to speak
with her.
―What do you think you‘re doing?‖ Victoria hissed, slapping the church newsletter. ―I‘ve told you
that you are not to have anything to do with those perverts at St. Peter‘s.‖
―The only pervert there was you,‖ Liz said, equally hotly. ―You‘re just mad because someone
caught you hitting me.‖
―I‘ll hit you right here if you –‖
―Go ahead.‖ Liz folded her arms over her chest, defiant. ―Beat me, Mother. Good and hard, right
here, in the principal‘s office. Show what you‘re made of.‖
Victoria felt that she was about to explode. She closed her eyes, hearing her heart pulse in her ears.
―You are not to sing in this concert,‖ she whispered. Then she walked away, mustering every ounce of
restraint not to shove the office doors off their hinges.
Her next stop was St. Peter‘s, where Father Gordon was alone, working on his sermon for Sunday.
―You can‘t have this thing here,‖ Victoria said, waving the newsletter in his face.
―I beg your pardon?‖ Father Gordon asked, caught completely by surprise. He had not even
realized that anyone was in the room with him until Victoria had started to speak.
―This concert, or whatever it is. You can‘t have it here.‖
―But why not?‖ Follett asked, genuinely interested.
―Because of what this man is.‖ Her gaze bore into Gordon Follett‘s watery blue eyes as her
fingernail tapped impatiently on the offending article. ―Don‘t you understand? By supporting Forrest
McCormick, you‘re endorsing the perverted things he does.‖
―Now, Mrs. Tanner,‖ the priest said mollifyingly, ―no allegations against Mr. McCormick have
been proven. In fact, the school has never even charged him. As to the young woman in question –‖
―Oh, shut up! She‘s not the young woman in question. Elizabeth is my daughter, you old fool!‖
Father Gordon sucked in his breath, scanned the ceiling, then turned back to her. ―Yes. Well, as far
as I know, Elizabeth herself denies most vehemently that any wrongdoing ever took place. Has she told you
something different?‖
Victoria‘s lips formed a white line. ―What she tells me – or anyone else – isn‘t important.‖
―It is to me,‖ Father Gordon said mildly. ―Now, unless there is some other business you would
like to discuss with me, I must get back to my work.‖
There was a long pause in which Victoria assessed the intractability of the priest and the futility of
her situation. She knew when things were beyond her. She would have to ask for assistance. ―Fine,‖ she
said, making it sound like a threat.
From her car, she called J.J. Johnson. He sounded almost happy to hear the news.
―I‘ll be glad to help,‖ he said. ―Just you quit worrying your head about this.‖
―Oh, J.J.,‖ Victoria said, trying to feel soft and trusting and settling for an approximation of those
feelings. ―I really don‘t know what I‘d do without you.‖
―What you can do is bring that daughter of yours to church tomorrow night. Can you do that?‖
―Sure can,‖ she said before hanging up. She physically felt her anger fading. A smile of well-being
spread across her face. Poor, gullible, weak old Father Gordon was about to get the scare of his life.
(Extra Space)
True to his word, J.J. was prepared to help. And this help would come to many: To Victoria, who
would be shown how to deal with a rebellious child, to Elizabeth, who would be led to the path of
righteousness, to the Episcopal priest, who would be made to see the error of his choice of religions, to
Forrest McCormick, who would be punished for his sins, even though the authorities had chosen to ignore
them, and to the arrogant bitch who ran the trailer park next door to the church and all the catamites and
evildoers who followed her. J.J.‘s plan would help them, too, by eradicating their pride and filling them
with the fear of the Almighty. In fact, the manner in which J.J. proposed to help all of these lost souls was
so wide-ranging, so pervasive, so perfect, that it could only be attributed to divine Providence.
He sent an email to a select group of men under then name ―Unconquerable 88‖: My friends, the
message began, we have a problem with the Pagan Trailer Park.
(Extra Space)
Henya Follett was perhaps the shyest person in Beltsville. Those who had known her from her
youth had often expressed surprise that she had become a nurse. Not because the nursing profession
required advanced schooling – Henya had always been one of the brightest students in all her classes -- but
because it required social contact.
It had been Father Gordon who had recommended a career in nursing for his adoptive daughter, as
a way for a kind but reticent young woman to perform service. Although since childhood Henya had
harbored a secret desire to travel, she knew that this was both self-indulgent and impractical. Besides, she
would not for the world have considered going against the wishes of the man who had done so much for
her and asked nothing in return.
So she studied nursing, and found that she excelled at it, particularly those aspects of the
profession that she had most feared, the ones that had to do with interacting with people. In the very sick,
Henya found a population which, for the most part, could not even articulate the severity of their suffering.
Doctors were interested in their patients‘ ailments, but not in the patients themselves. And nurses, even
LPN‘s, were generally too busy for more than a cursory exchange of words in the course of routine care.
Henya, too, was busy in the hospital where she worked, but from her first days there she had taken the time
to sit with each patient in the ICU. Sometimes she did no more than hold their hands or wipe their sweatsoaked faces, but she always listened, and those who spoke to her from their beds knew, without Henya‘s
ever speaking a word, that she cared about them.
The number of people who loved Henya Follett grew over the years, and was in no small way
responsible for the growth – such as it was – of the membership of St. Peter‘s Episcopal Church. So
although she was arguably the shyest person in Beltsville, Henya was easily the most useful, and therefore
popular, member of St. Peter‘s. From the time she was nine years old, after she had seemingly sprung from
the arms of Gordon and Charlotte Follett, she had taken the Sunday offering, printed the bulletins, cleaned
the sanctuary, answered the church phones, and accompanied Father Follett on his visits to the sick and
housebound.
At the end of each Sunday service, almost everyone made a point of saying goodbye to Henya
along with her parents. The stragglers who remained behind after the general exodus could watch her take
down the altar cloths, collect the discarded bulletins, and get the flowers ready for transport to the local
nursing home. Sometimes there was a line of people waiting to see Henya, hoping for a little private time
with the girl who always had time for them. Often they would present her with gifts – pies women had
brought and kept on their laps during the service, or baskets of home-grown vegetables. Sometimes they
would bring her unused bandages or plastic bed protectors left by deceased loved ones. On her birthday,
which she never announced, she received boxes full of small gifts and cards from well-wishers who had
become loyal adherents of Episcopalianism, the town‘s minority sect.
And so it was not really surprising when a man she didn‘t recognize stepped out of the back pew
after all the other congregants had left and came limping toward her, showing a row of bad teeth and eyes
that shone with malice. Short, balding, pot-bellied, thin-lipped, he was unexceptional in appearance, yet at
the sight of him Henya felt a jolt of fear so strong that she stopped in her tracks and doubled over, nearly
vomiting in the church aisle.
―Miss Follett?‖ he inquired politely, still limping inexorably toward her.
Henya looked up. Forrest and Katherine were in the choir loft at the back of the church, going over
the music for Forrest‘s oratorio. Since he rewrote the tsunami song as a sacred aria for Liz Petrovsky,
Forrest was on fire. He spent nearly all of his free time in the organ loft composing, and Katherine did her
best to help him by filling out passages on the church organ, even though she had still not forgiven him for
his indiscretion with Jazzy, and refused to speak to Forrest on matters unrelated to music.
―Miss Follett?‖ the man repeated.
Henya felt herself sweating. Her forehead, her upper lip. And she didn‘t know why. Was she
coming down with something? Her breath was rising and falling rapidly, her heart beating like a
jackhammer. ―Yes?‖ she forced herself to answer.
―Why, I near didn‘t recognize you,‖ he said in the twangy, nasal accent of backwoods Tennessee.
―Been such a long time.‖ The brown stubs of his teeth peeked out of a gray slash of a mouth. Despite his
words, his eyes held no warmth. ―I knowed your ma. Your real mother, that is, Charlene May, afore you
got all white and holy.‖ He laughed, gesturing vaguely around the church. ―She was white, you know. But
she took on the darkies.‖
Henya looked frantically around her. Father Gordon had gone back to his office and Mother
Charlotte, she knew, would be busy clearing out the Sunday school rooms.
―I knowed you, too, if you know what I mean.‖ He winked lasciviously. ―Paid good money for
you. And you didn‘t seem to mind one bit, as I recall.‖
―Help,‖ Henya faltered, barely audible. Then she repeated, louder, ―Help!‖
―No need to be like that, Missy,‖ the man said softly, leaning over her. ―Just wanted you to know
there‘s folks know all about you, how you like to suck on white cock –‖
She clapped her hands over her ears, her face contorted. The man yanked her toward him, forcing
her hands down. ―Listen to me, you nigger whore. You better leave decent people alone, or you‘re going to
get more than you bargained for –‖
At this point Forrest came stumbling down the stairs from the choir loft with Katherine close
behind him.
―What are you doing?‖ he panted, running down the center aisle.
―Why, not a thing,‖ the man said amiably. Henya threw up her arms, releasing herself from his
grip. ―I was just telling the little lady here –―
― Get out!‖ Henya screamed, trembling so visibly that her rayon dress seemed to shimmer.
―Okay, you‘d better go,‖ Forrest said, taking the man‘s arm.
―And I believe I know who you are, too,‖ the man went on calmly. ―Ain‘t you that child molester,
feeling up young girls in school and then coming home to your married whore?‖ He nodded toward
Katherine, who froze in shock. ―That‘d be you, Ma‘am, is my guess.‖
―Let‘s go,‖ Forrest said, taking the man‘s elbow.
―Fine, fine. No need to get all agitated.‖ He allowed Forrest to walk him to the front door and into
the parking lot.
―What the hell did you come here for?‖ Forrest demanded.
―Just giving you a little warning,‖ the man said. ―The day of reckoning is coming.‖
―All right, all right.‖ Forrest had met his share of nuts before, and knew that the best thing to do
was to get them out of the way. ―Where‘s your car, buddy?‖
―Got a truck, right over there.‖ The man motioned toward a battered pickup near a copse of trees.
―You‘d want to make sure I get in it, I guess.‖
―Yeah, that‘s right. Get in.‖ Forrest gave him a little push in a show of manliness. ―And don‘t
come back.‖
―Oh, I won‘t. You can count on that.‖ With that, he turned around and, with surprising strength,
pulled Forrest‘s arm into a hammerlock behind him, then propelled him past the truck and into the patch of
trees.
―Hey,‖ Forrest rasped suddenly terrified. ―You don‘t want to do this.‖
―Oh, yes I do.‖ A shiny knife with a blade slender as an awl appeared in his hand. ―You‘re a devilloving whore fucker,‖ he said almost apologetically. ―This is the punishment God has brought you.‖ With
that, he plunged the dagger into Forrest‘s chest. Almost simultaneously, he scooped up a handful of loose
dirt with his free hand and stuffed it into Forrest‘s mouth.
As Forrest sputtered and writhed on the pine needle-strewn ground, the man hopped into the
pickup and drove away.
Forrest tried to maintain the presence of mind to observe the truck‘s license number, but his vision
was blurring with shock. He was choking on the dirt in his mouth. He could no longer feel the wound made
by the knife, although he could see the bloodstain on his shirt widening steadily.
His last conscious thought was of the smell of fallen pine needles. Even in winter, they smelled
green.
Chapter Fifty Four
Forrest
Forrest came to consciousness in the ICU of Beltsville Memorial Hospital, with Katherine and
Henya on either side of his bed. He had suffered two broken ribs and a concussion in addition to the knife
wound, a lot of bruises, a bloody nose, and a loose tooth. For all that, though, he had been lucky. The knife
had glanced off a rib and penetrated well below his heart.
―Hello, Forrest,‖ Katherine said gently. Her eyes were shining. She was as beautiful as she‘d been
the first time he had seen her.
―I love you,‖ he croaked.
Katherine‘s eyes welled up and tears spilled over her cheeks. ―I love you, too.‖
Henya patted his hand. ―I‘ll get your doctor. He‘ll want to know you‘re awake.‖
―Oh, hi, Henya,‖ Forrest said, noticing her for the first time. ―Thanks for taking care of me.‖
―You took care of me, she corrected.
―With that redneck creep,‖ Katherine added. Henya gave her a signal with her eyes. ―I‘m sorry. I
guess you don‘t want to think about that.‖
―No, that‘s all right. Have they caught him?‖
―Yes,‖ Katherine said, squeezing his hand. ―Henya and I went down to the police station as soon
as we got you settled in here. The Chief acted like he wasn‘t even interested at first, but then about ten
other people from the church came in with descriptions of the guy after they‘d heard what happened.
Marilyn Stockwell even took a picture of him with her cell phone during the service. She thought he looked
suspicious.‖ She laughed. ―She wrote down his license number, too.‖
Forrest tried a smile. ―Life in a small town,‖ he mumbled.
―I think Father Gordon called them. They were all glad to help.‖
―So the Chief had no choice, this time,‖ Henya said tightly.
―This time?‖ Katherine asked, puzzled.
How innocent they are, Henya thought, these rich white married women. Katherine Davis had
never run afoul of the law. How could she? The laws were made for people like her. Katherin had only seen
one face of Chief Lontz and the part-time officers who worked for him.
Henya herself had seen other, less heroic faces. They belonged to the people who had allowed her
to be sold into prostitution at the age of nine. They had seized Mo Owen‘s car and license plate and left her
stranded on the side of a dirt road. They had driven into the trailer park to threaten its inhabitants. People
who put their trust in the Beltsville police would be better off praying to the Tooth Fairy to protect them,
she thought. Yes, the weirdo who had nearly killed Forrest was in jail at the moment, but she doubted very
much if he would stay there long.
Katherine and people like her just didn‘t know what the police were capable of. If a cop here
wanted to line you up against a wall and shoot you, he could. And there‘d be nothing you could do about it.
Forrest would find out soon enough what people like Henya had known all their lives: That in a place like
Beltsville, there were no laws for people who didn‘t fit. The gays, the racially mixed, the feebleminded,
people with no connections, foreigners, addicts, strangers… These were fair game.
And now, without having a clue about what they were doing, Katherine and Forrest were
volunteering to join that group.
―It‘s all going to be fine,‖ Henya said, rising briskly. ―Excuse me.‖ She left the room, relieved at
not having to look at Forrest while she lied to him.
(Extra Space)
Victoria heard about the attack on Forrest the next morning on Talk of the Town. She immediately
called J.J., who assured her that, unfortunate though it was, the assault was all for the best and that he, J.J.,
would prove that in his Wednesday night sermon.
Liz overheard the news as she was running for the school bus. By second period, she‘d arranged
for the Glee Club to meet at the front entrance to the hospital after school.
(Extra Space)
That evening, Forrest was moved from the ICU to a regular room, which was filled with residents
of Elysian Fields, the clientele of General Grant‘s, the staff of St. Peter‘s, and a number of faculty members
from Liberty High.
―I have an announcement,‖ Katherine said, waving her arms to get the crowd‘s attention. ―For
those of you who don‘t already know, Father Gordon has agreed to hold Forrest‘s Christmas oratorio at St.
Peter‘s.‖
There was a burst of applause and cheering before the convivial chatter started up again. Katherine
had more to say, but she knew she could not bring about silence twice so she leaned forward and spoke
quietly, directly into Forrest‘s stricken, terrified face. ―It‘ll give you a reason to get better fast,‖ she said.
Forrest squirmed awkwardly, feeling as if he needed a bedpan. ―I don‘t think I can have
everything ready by Christmas.‖
―Of course you can,‖ Katherine said lovingly. ―The singers already have the music.‖
―But the orchestration—‖
―Musicians don‘t need more than a week to learn music. You‘ll have the score done by then. And
I‘ve been working up an organ part.‖
He looked up at her, trusting as a child. ―You have?‖
―I was going to surprise you. Everything can be changed, of course.‖
Forrest thought, his lips pulled inward. ―Christmas,‖ he whispered.
Katherine smiled. ―Messiah for the twenty-first century.‖
―Not Messiah,‖ Forrest said. ―But redemption all the same. Three movements: Folly, rather than
sin. Then Grace, rather than forgiveness. And finally, Redemption. The chance to start over. That‘s what I
want to do with the orchestration.‖
―See? You already know what you‘ll be doing, so you won‘t have any problem finishing on time.‖
―The strings…‖ But he had lost his audience. Katherine, along with everyone else in the room, had
shifted her attention to the doorway, where a growing crowd of well-scrubbed teenagers was assembling.
Liz Petrovsky, ringleader as usual, lifted two fingers in the air and hummed the first note.
We wish you a quick recovery
And you’ll make a great discovery
Our songs shall be simply lover-ly
For a happyYule ear!
Forrest‘s room full of visitors made even more noise than they had previously, causing Henya,
striding down the hall toward them, to hold up her arms in protest.
―I‘m afraid there are far too many of you here,‖ she said sternly. ―I‘ll have to ask some of you to
go to the waiting room.‖
―We‘ll go after we sing one more song, okay?‖ Liz said, holding up two fingers again.
―You‘ll go now,‖ Henya said. ―Mr. McCormick will be out of the hospital soon enough. He‘ll
hear you then.‖
But Liz was already humming the first note. ―We love you Forrest, oh yes we do-oo,‖ they sang.
―Shh.‖ Henya produced the authoritative, if spurious, evil eye that had gotten her promoted to
Charge Nurse on the Intensive Care Unit. No one thought to question that this was not the ICU, or that
Henya was actually on her dinner break. The students, properly intimidated, filed blandly into the waiting
room.
Liz was the last to leave Forrest‘s bedside. ―I wanted to sing for you,‖ she said, dejected.
―Don‘t be bossy, Liz,‖ Katherine said.
―No.‖ Forrest smiled. ―Go ahead. Sing Mary‘s Lament. I‘d like everyone to hear it.‖
Liz puffed up with pride, filling her outsized lungs with air in preparation for the difficult
pianissimo opening of the aria. But just before she sang, Katherine shook her head. The corners of her
mouth turned down as she pointed with her chin to a spot behind Liz.
―What‘s…‖ Liz turned around. ―Oh. Mom,‖ she said dispiritedly.
―How dare you disobey me again,‖ Victoria hissed, grabbing Liz‘s arm with her bony fingers.
―Mom, please.‖ Liz‘s face was scarlet with embarrassment. All sound in the room had abruptly
ceased.
―You get out of here and into the car right now!‖ Victoria shoved Liz toward the door. The girl
stumbled awkwardly, crashing into a chair, overturning it.
Henya helped her up, then insisted that everyone leave the room. ―All of you, now. Someone tell
the students in the waiting area that they should go.‖ She ushered everyone out briskly. ―Sorry Dad,‖ she
said as she led Gordon and Charlotte Follett to the door.
Father Gordon smiled. ―Quite all right, my dear,‖ he said. Charlotte patted Henya‘s hand.
―I‘m staying,‖ Katherine said. Henya nodded.
Outside the room, she was surprised to see Victoria, standing between an abashed and humiliated
Liz on one side and Officer J.J. Johnson, resplendent in his Beltsville Police uniform, on the other. ―Yes?‖
Henya asked flatly. She had learned long ago to hide any feelings of apprehension or fear, although being
in the presence of the man who had threatened her so effectively brought those feelings close to the surface.
―Just looking to see that the lady here (he indicated Victoria, as if to reinforce his belief that
neither Henya nor Liz were ladies) is permitted to take her daughter home.‖
―Of course she is.‖
―Oh, I wouldn‘t know about that. These cults can get pretty ugly.‖
―Cult?‖ What are you talking about?‖ Henya demanded.
―There isn‘t any cult!‖ Liz put in, but Henya raised her hand for silence, squinting at J.J.
Victoria shook herself like a chicken coming out of the rain. ―There most certainly is! You and all
those perverts who keep trying to recruit my daughter.‖
―That is ridiculous –‖
―Excuse me, Ma‘am,‖ J.J. said, his voice resonant with authority, ―but I have been given cause to
understand that the last time Mrs. Tanner attempted to take her daughter from your circle – I believe that
was in St. Peter‘s Episcopal Church, in the presence of its pastor, the man who calls himself your father –‖
―What do you mean, ‗calls himself‘?‖
―—that when Mrs. Tanner tried to take her daughter home, you threatened her with bodily harm –‖
―That‘s bullshit!‖ Liz shouted. ―You tattooed freak!‖
Officer Johnson stopped talking. He looked at the floor and breathed deeply. In the silence, the
sense of danger was almost tangible, crackling like fire. ―Take her home,‖ he said quietly. As Victoria,
muttering threats, led Liz toward the elevators, J.J. straightened to his full height and stared down at Henya
for a long moment. ―What I‘m saying is, I don‘t want to have to come after you people for kidnapping.‖
―No, I‘m sure you wouldn‘t,‖ Henya said. ―Because that would require the presence of the FBI,
who might have something to say about your police procedures.‖
He grinned. ―We can see about that,‖ he said.
Henya walked away. Her break was over.
(Extra Space)
When the Folletts got back to the rectory, the phone was ringing. ―I‘ll make some tea,‖ Charlotte
said as he husband picked up the phone. He pursed his lips in a kiss.
―This is Father Gordon Follett,‖ he answered.
―Who‘ll be next?‖ the voice on the other end asked.
―I beg your pardon?‖ He frowned, sure he had not heard the man correctly. ―Er, who are you
calling?‖
―I think it might be that whore organist. Or the Tanner girl, the one who‘s putting out for that
pervert music teacher. He got what was coming to him, didn‘t he?‖
Father Gordon sputtered, unable to form any words.
―Or will it be you, Reverend Follett?‖
―What—what are you talking about?‖
―Or your wife, maybe.‖
―My wife…‖
Charlotte stepped out of the kitchen, attentive.
―You‘re walking on a razor‘s edge, sir,‖ the voice said by way of farewell.
―No, wait. Hello? Hello?‖ Follett‘s shoulders slumped.
―What is it?‖ Charlotte asked.
He shook his head. ―I‘m thinking we may be looking at a hard winter,‖ he said.
Chapter Fifty Five
Victoria
―I‘m sorry,‖ Father Gordon said with a finality he rarely expressed. ―The concert simply can‘t be
held here. It‘s too dangerous. In my opinion, it shouldn‘t be held at all.‖
Katherine‘s face was flushing furiously. ―All because of Victoria Tanner,‖ she spat.
―I don‘t think so.‖ Gordon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ―Mrs. Tanner was here, it‘s true, and
she was insisting that Elizabeth not participate in any musical program conducted by Forrest –‖
―That b…‖ She looked up at Follett, who smiled back at her with his eyes.
―She‘s a difficult woman,‖ he said mildly.
―Forrest never did anything to Liz.‖
―I know. But someone called me, and it wasn‘t Victoria Tanner.‖
―Who was it?‖
―I don‘t know.‖ He paused a moment, deciding how much to say. ―But there were threats.‖
―Threats? What kind of threats?‖
He shook his head. ―It doesn‘t matter. But they mentioned Elizabeth.‖
―What?‖ Katherine felt as if her veins were suddenly filled with ice water.
―And you.‖ She began to speak, but he held up his hand for silence. ―And Mrs. Follett.‖
Katherine covered her mouth. ―Oh, God,‖ she said.
―I didn‘t want to alarm you. It‘s probably nothing, anyway,‖ Gordon waffled. ―A toothless thing.
Still…‖
―Have you told Victoria?‖
Follett shook his head. ―You‘re the first. I didn‘t even know whether or not I should tell you. As I
said, it may come to nothing. But since you‘ve taken over Forrest‘s duties as director of the choir here, I
felt you should know, in case you‘d want to…‖
―I‘m not leaving,‖ Katherine said. ―But Liz ought to.‖
―I really think it would be enough to cancel the concert –―
―That man tried to kill Forrest,‖ she said hotly. ―And I don‘t think he was working alone.‖ She
stood up and grabbed her pocketbook. ―No, this has gone way beyond a concert.‖
―What are you going to do?‖ Father Gordon called behind her.
―Whatever I can,‖ she said.
(Extra Space)
Victoria was showing a 40-year-old split level to a young couple when Katherine screeched to a
halt in the driveway. ―Victoria!‖ she shouted as she sprinted toward the door. She let herself in, almost
colliding with Victoria in the entranceway.
―Why, Katherine,‖ Victoria said, smiling brightly. She never gave the appearance of urgency
during a showing. Nothing to scare the buyers. ―What a surprise.‖
―Victoria, there‘s a problem. Father Gordon got an anonymous phone call –‖
―Excuse me for just a moment,‖ Victoria said, her smile still frozen in place as she touched
Katherine‘s arm. ―Jodie, why don‘t you and Michael take a look upstairs?‖ she called. ―You‘ll love the
master bedroom.‖ Then she turned back toward Katherine, her face now a mask of rage. ―How dare you
barge in on me while I‘m working!‖ she whispered, digging her nails into Katherine‘s arm.
―Someone‘s threatened Liz,‖ Katherine said. ―Someone who knew about the attack on Forrest.‖
―What do you mean, threatened?‖ Victoria‘s expression was belligerent. ―Look, if this is some
kind of stupid trick –‖
―It isn‘t,‖ Katherine explained patiently. ―Whoever hurt Forrest is making a list. I‘m on it, and for
some reason Liz is, too.‖
Victoria remained unmoving, stiff. ―I don‘t believe you.‖
―Please, Victoria. You know people with the police department. Tell them if you think it‘ll help.
But keep Liz safe.‖
Victoria blinked. For the first time in Katherine‘s memory, she looked terrified.
―I‘m cancelling the concert,‖ Katherine said. ―We can‘t take a risk like this.‖
―Do what you want,‖ Victoria said.
The house buyers called down a question about the hot water heater.
―I‘ll go,‖ Katherine said quietly.
Victoria didn‘t respond. Katherine let herself out.
(Extra Space)
―Now, just calm down, baby,‖ J.J. said with a smile in his voice. ―My, you do get yourself worked
up, don‘t you.‖
―I think this is serious, J.J. Someone‘s threatened my daughter, and I want you to do something
about it!‖
He laughed. ―Whoa, Nellie! Do I look like God to you?‖
―What do you mean?‖
―Did whoever made the threat leave an address and phone number?‖
―But Father Gordon –―
―Father Gordon,‖ he repeated derisively. ―If you ask me, that‘s your big bad boy right there.‖
―What? No, he wouldn‘t…‖
―Hey, all I‘m saying is that this so-called threat was called in to that old collar-wearing geezer, not
you. Doesn‘t that seem a tad strange to you?‖ Victoria heard a pencil snap near the phone.
―I suppose. It‘s just that Katherine seemed so upset…‖
―Katherine Davis, the fornicating organist,‖ J.J. said. ―Now, is that a person you‘d trust to tell you
the truth, Victoria?‖ He didn‘t wait for an answer. ―And another thing. The threat against Mrs. Follett. Now
tell me, who in his right mind would want to go after her? That is strictly the old man‘s fabrication. Or
maybe his fantasy, depending on how –‖
―Mrs. Follett?‖ Victoria interrupted. ―Charlotte? What‘s she got to do with anything?‖
J.J hesitated. ―Why, didn‘t you just tell me she was on the endangered species list?‖ He chuckled.
―No. That is, I didn‘t –‖
―Sure you did. Don‘t you remember? Well, never mind. You‘re probably too upset to know which
way is up, aren‘t you, sweetie pie?‖
―I am upset, there‘s no doubt about it,‖ Victoria said.
―And I understand. I am so glad you thought to call me, darling, because I am always ready to help
you in any way I can.‖
Victoria tensed. She didn‘t like it when men professed to be helpful. It brought their sincerity into
question.
―I want you to know, I am definitely on your side.‖
She ground her teeth together.
―I know it must be hard for you. Those hypocrites from St. Peter‘s treat you like some red-headed
stepchild, but as long as I can draw breath, I swear that you are not alone.‖
Victoria clenched her jaw. She wanted a husband. She wanted J.J.
―You there, honey?‖
―Yes. Yes, thank you. I think Katherine was just trying to scare me.‖
―Maybe enough to get you to leave town,‖ J.J. suggested.
Victoria‘s lips formed into a tight line. ―That‘s never going to happen.‖
―That‘s the spirit. Now you just stick to your guns, little lady, and don‘t you worry about a thing.
Are you coming to Prayer Meeting on Wednesday night?‖
―I…‖ She was supposed to show a house then. ―Of course,‖ she said. It would be easy to change
the appointment.
―And bring that headstrong girl with you,‖ he added. ―She‘s at the age where they‘ll go all
kaflooie if you don‘t keep a grip on them. Especially with no man in the house.‖
―Oh, I know that.‖
―And I‘ll keep checking on those jokers at the trailer park. I wouldn‘t be surprised if it was one of
them put old Father Time up to all these scare tactics. Throw people off the scent.‖
―Yes… Look, I‘m sorry, J.J., but I‘ve got another call coming in. Thanks for your help.‖
―Don‘t mention it. We‘ll see you on Wednesday.‖
―Yes.‖ She hung up. There was no other call, just a strange feeling that had permeated that whole
conversation and made her want to end it. Something didn‘t seem right. She‘d sensed it as soon as J.J.
mentioned Father Gordon‘s wife.
Victoria hadn‘t known that Charlotte Follett had been one of the people threatened. Well,
ostensibly threatened. Purportedly threatened. And J.J. was right. Who would care to threaten the priest‘s
wife?
Only someone who‘d want to frighten Father Gordon.
The weird thing was, she didn‘t remember hearing about Charlotte from Katherine, and she
certainly didn‘t remember mentioning her to J.J.
Well, that just went to show how upset Victoria had been.
Stress. Stress was throwing off her instincts.
J.J. made sense, as he always did. Katherine Davis, Elizabeth, and Charlotte Follett were not
anything like standard targets. There was no threat at all, just something the wackos at the Pagan Trailer
Park had made up to drive Victoria away.
Well, it wasn‘t going to work.
(Extra Space)
On Wednesday afternoon, Victoria waited patiently for Liz to come home after school. Glee Club
practice was scheduled for Wednesdays. Since Victoria had expressly forbidden Elizabeth to participate in
the group, this was the litmus test of Elizabeth‘s loyalties. If her daughter dared to defy her again, she was
prepared to ground the girl for the rest of the term.
J.J had been right – teenagers would walk all over you if you didn‘t control them. She had been
entirely too lax with her daughter.
That couldn‘t be helped, though. Single mothers didn‘t have it easy. That is, unless they were
sluts, or welfare mamas. Keeping a child like Elizabeth on the straight and narrow while trying to make a
living was nearly impossible. You‘d think a little gratitude would be in order, she ruminated, but that would
be like asking for the moon from that girl. Everything was about her, her singing, her future, her friends…
―Mom!‖ Liz burst through the door, dropping her books in a pile behind her. ―You‘ve got to see
this.‖
Victoria looked at her watch. Right on time. ―You took the bus,‖ she said.
―Yeah. I wanted to get home as soon as I could.‖ She turned on the computer. ―You‘re not going
to believe this.‖
―Elizabeth, if you‘re going to show me a video or something –‖
―No. Just hold on. This‘ll be… okay, here it is.‖
The home page appeared. ―Stormfront?‖ Victoria asked. ―What‘s that?‖
―It‘s a white supremacist site that‘s an umbrella for all the nutsos like the KKK and –‖
―Elizabeth!‖ Victoria stood up. ―I suppose these people are friends of yours.‖
―Not mine, Ma,‖ Liz said. ―Yours. One in particular.‖ She went into a reader/contributor section
and pointed to one of the participating names, Unconquerable 88. ―Look familiar?‖
Victoria froze.
―This guy is bad news,‖ Liz said. ―Right here, he‘s writing about ‗the righteous fire in the
Metropolis.‘ Well, five years ago some arsonists set fire to the Metropolitan Church in Altha, Georgia.
Didn‘t what‘s-his-name say he was from Altha?‖
―Where did you get this?‖ Victoria demanded.
―Brendan Shaw and I looked it up together in computer lab. Brendan had a clue because he knew
that 88 is code for Heil Hitler.‖
―What?‖
―H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. 88 – HH… Well, it isn‘t hard to figure out.‖
―Oh, my God,‖ Victoria whispered. ―Hitler… It can‘t be.‖ She shook her head vehemently. ―No, it
can‘t. I don‘t believe it.‖
Liz looked straight at her mother and ticked the facts off her fingers: ―Okay, J.J.‘s got
Unconquerable on his arm and 88 tattooed on the back of his neck. Plus he was logged onto the Stormfront
website the first time he spent the night here –‖
―I told you, he came by in the morning. His car –‖
―Oh, stop it, Mom. The point is that old Unconquerable 88 is…‖ She scrolled backward through
weeks of responses. ―Here, he‘s holding forth about how homosexuals ought to be destroyed. Oh, BTW,
did I tell you that the Metropolitan Church is a gay church? There‘s also an interesting little squib a few
months back, also by Unconquerable 88, about a gay police officer who ended up paralyzed.‖
―So?‖ Victoria said defensively. ―That work‘s dangerous. Besides –‖
―Yeah, well, it‘s more dangerous for some than for others, apparently. Heil Hitler here says the
cop got what was coming to him because he tried to put the moves on ‗a real man,‘ as he put it.‖
―Elizabeth, it‘s wrong to toss around accusations –‖
―Back in 98 – it took Brendan over two hours to dig this up – a police sergeant in Ooltewah was
shot during a drug raid and paralyzed from the waist down. The bullet‘s still in the guy‘s spine, so it
couldn‘t be analyzed.‖
―So?‖ Victoria said again. ―What would that prove?‖
―For one thing, it could prove that he was shot by a police weapon.‖
―Oh, Elizabeth!‖ She was angry now. ―You‘ve gone too far with this.‖
Liz barreled on, undeterred. ―And guess who his partner was?‖
―No.‖
―It was J.J.‖
―Stop it. You‘re making this up.‖
―Get real,‖ Liz said. ―Here‘s another one. Who do you think retired from the Ooltewah police
after just one year of service?‖
Victoria‘s lips quivered, then disappeared into a hard thin line.
―J.J.,‖ Liz mouthed. ―He might have moved his initials up a couple of spaces, but he‘s still H.H.‖
―You…‖ Victoria face was red. She was having difficulty breathing. ―You don‘t know that.‖
―What? Oh, come on, Mom. Were you born yesterday?‖
―I most certainly was not. Which is why I know you can‘t go around accusing people without any
more proof than…‖
―Than a tattooed homophobe who‘s using a church to get his next door neighbors run out of town
on a rail?‖
―That‘s not it at all! It‘s those people who are using scare tactics to drive us out!‖
―Us? Who‘s us?‖
―You and me. If you must know, Elizabeth, Katherine Davis deliberately burst into a house I was
showing – trying, no doubt, to throw a monkey wrench into the sale – to tell me some cock and bull story
about death threats against you.‖
―Against me?‖
―Oh, it was all nonsense. She thought they were threatening her, too.‖
―Who‘s they?‖
―Oh, it‘s no one, don‘t you see? She just made it up to scare me. She told me to get out of town,
says it‘s the only way to keep you safe. How compassionate.‖
Liz thought. ―What about the concert?‖ she asked.
―Of course that‘s been cancelled. No one would have gone to it see it, anyway.‖
―Was it cancelled because of the threats?‖
Victoria shrugged. ―That‘s what Katherine would have me believe, the lying slut.‖
―But why would she lie about that, Mom? The concert meant so much to her.‖
―How would I know?‖ Vitoria said irritably.
Liz ran her finger along the computer screen, creating a line of static. ―That‘s why Glee Club was
cancelled today,‖ she said, almost to herself. ―No one knew why, especially with the concert so close.‖
―Well, it‘s not close any more.‖
Liz took a deep breath ―I think it‘s J.J.,‖ she said.
―How dare you –‖
―Wake up, Mom,‖ Liz said, too loud. ―He doesn‘t care about you. He sure doesn‘t care about me.
All he wants is to close down the trailer park which isn‘t even open to begin with, but that‘s beside the
point. He wants them all gone out of there.‖
―That‘s not true,‖ Victoria said. Every line in her face pointed dangerously downward.
―What do you mean, it‘s not true?‖ Liz shouted. ―Everything I‘ve told you – ‖
―You‘re just being dramatic, as usual, Elizabeth. Now I don‘t want to hear any more.‖
―Mom –‖
―Just go to your room and change your clothes!‖ she rasped.
―My clothes?‖
―We‘re expected at the prayer meeting tonight.‖
―What?‖ Liz shouted. ―Are you shitting me?‖
―That‘s enough!‖
―Haven‘t you heard anything I‘ve said? Mom, your boyfriend‘s a Nazi.‖
Victoria walked over to her purposefully and prepared to strike, but Liz saw it coming. She picked
up her biology book and held it like a baseball bat near her head. ―I love you, Mom, but so help me, if you
hit me now, I‘ll knock your block off,‖ she said.
Victoria hesitated. Her arm dropped. The book fell to the floor.
―Get up there,‖ Victoria spat, pinching Liz hard on her arm. ―I‘ll teach you to threaten me! You‘re
going to that goddamned prayer meeting or I‘ll have J.J. do what I should have done a long time ago.‖
―I won‘t!‖ Liz turned to run up the stairs.
Victoria caught her by the arm. She looked straight into her daughter‘s eyes and spoke very softly.
―If you don‘t come to the meeting, I will tell J.J. And he will come back for you. And he will hurt you.‖
Liz‘s face crumpled.
―Is that clear?‖ Victoria demanded.
Liz blinked. ―Why?‖ she whispered.
―Why what? Why am I making you go to church? I‘ll tell you. It‘s because –‖
―Why can‘t you just love me?‖ Liz asked.
Victoria let go of her arm. There was a long silence that hung in the air between them.
―You don‘t know anything about being a parent,‖ Victoria said.
Liz wanted to laugh. There were so many things she could have said in response. So many jokes,
smart remarks, sarcastic sallies, logical arguments, quotations. But there was no need. Not any more.
The time for talking, she knew, was past.
Chapter Fifty Six
J.J. Johnson
More than anything, Victoria wanted a cigarette. She didn‘t know why; it had been more than 15
years since she‘d quit. There was just a lot of confusion in her mind. Yes, that was it, confusion and stress.
She checked her watch. An hour before the meeting started. Plenty of time, but that girl had better
not dawdle.
She hadn‘t seen J.J. in nearly a week. When she‘d called about the threat, Victoria had hoped that
he would come over immediately to comfort her, but he hadn‘t. Busy, she guessed. The man did have two
jobs, after all.
Still, he used to make time for her, even if it was just a nooner. And they‘d talked. She‘d told him
everything, about her problems with Elizabeth, about those misfits at the Pagan Trailer Park, even about her
first husband, Bill Petrovsky. J.J. had confessed that he‘d been married before, too, to an impossible bitch
who repeatedly broke her vow of obedience to him. In the end, he‘d had to put her out.
Put her out. That was a phrase Victoria hadn‘t heard since her childhood. Her family had been
fundamentalists, like J.J., in a community where the right path was narrow and the punishment for straying
from that path was severe. She‘d heard of women who‘d been put out by their husbands to fend for
themselves as washerwomen or prostitutes. Sometimes their children were put out with them, and they‘d be
forced to live in abandoned shacks or in rusted railroad cars. Some of those women, taken from the
backwoods as girls, were so ignorant they didn‘t even know they were entitled to welfare, let alone child
support.
Most of the time they still came to church, though, even though the church usually took the
husband‘s side. Those women, shoeless and dirty, would be made to stand at the front of the church, while
the congregation pilloried them with accusations and advice. They were publicly damned to hellfire and
eternal suffering in exchange for the privilege of attending the service and the refreshment hour at the end
of it, when their children stuffed their pockets with hot dog pieces and molasses cookies.
Victoria checked her watch again. ―Ten minutes!‖ she shouted up the stairs. They had more time
than that, but Elizabeth wouldn‘t know, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
J.J. didn‘t like people coming in late.
It wouldn‘t be easy to be the wife of a righteous man, she thought. But then, that was what a man
was supposed to be. Righteous and strong, not venal and weak like Bill Petrovsky.
Victoria had seen Bill the other day at Home Depot, where she‘d been looking for a replacement
knob after Elizabeth crashed into the TV cabinet and broke off the original. Bill had gained so much weight
that she almost hadn‘t recognized him. That was where Elizabeth got it from. They were no better than
addicts, she thought, both of them. He‘d had a woman with him, too, someone almost as fat as he was.
Victoria had slid into the paint aisle just to avoid talking with him.
―It‘s time to go, do you hear me, Elizabeth?‖
She‘d heard about the Metropolitan Church in Altha. Some people died trying to put out the fire.
One was a volunteer fireman with three kids. The press – the incident had made the national news – had
made a big deal out of the firefighter‘s death, naturally, while playing down the fact that the congregation
was made up entirely of homosexuals and lesbians. There had been an investigation afterward, but it didn‘t
lead to any arrests. The media had been a lot more interested in it than the local authorities, it seemed, and
the hubbub died down before long.
A tempest in a teacup, people had said. The place had burned down at night, so no one except the
volunteer fireman and three other people who‘d rushed over to help had gotten hurt. Maybe those people
ought to go to church with everyone else, someone had said on Talk of the Town. God only knows what they
did there, anyway.
She drifted over to the computer and jiggled the mouse. The Stormfront site came up.
Unconquerable 88: The solution to pollution is simple. Flush it away like what it is.
Some elements exist just to test our mettle. It worked in the Metropolis, it will work
here.
What was he talking about? She scrolled backward to get a sense of the discussion, but Elizabeth
emerged from her room, her nose red and her eyes swollen.
―You‘re wearing a skirt,‖ Victoria said, standing up abruptly. ―That‘s a surprise.‖
―I‘m only going so that you won‘t sic your psychotic boyfriend on me, and I‘m only doing it until
I can get away from you.‖
―Blah, blah, blah.‖
―If the cops here weren‘t so crooked, I‘d turn you both in.‖
―Get in the car.‖
Victoria started the engine of the Sebring and put up the top. As she pulled out of the driveway,
she thought about what her daughter had said. It was true, Elizabeth wouldn‘t have a prayer of getting the
Beltsville police to help her.
(Extra Space)
―Welcome, friends in Jesus,‖ J.J. (henceforth to be known as Preacher Johnson) intoned. He sat on
the throne – that is, on the chair nearest the altar, where Rev. Willet usually sat, smiling broadly at the
congregants as they filled up the 50 folding chairs in the room.
Willet himself was scowling and dyspeptic. The polyps in his throat had swollen to such an extent
that he could scarcely breathe. Preaching was out of the question.
―Well, this is what an associate pastor is for,‖ he‘d whispered to J.J. on Monday morning, after a
very difficult sermon the day before.
―I‘m sure you won‘t be needing me,‖ J.J. had said, leaping inwardly. The old bastard‘s time was
up, and J.J.‘s was beginning at last. Twice as many people came to Prayer Meeting as showed up at the
Sunday service.
It was because of the snakes, of course. After a person had witnessed Satan in the flesh, writhing
and poisonous enough to send a grown man to his Maker, it was damn hard to go back to sitting quietly in a
scratchy shirt while some old fart talked about tithing. That was why the Church of the Divine Redeemer
could pack them in while those gutless mainstream churches like St. Peter‘s stood ignored and empty.
But the most amazing thing about the church‘s success, J.J. pondered, was that Carlton Willet, Jr.
had never actually handled a snake.
Unlike the mountain preachers – itinerant, oft-bitten snake handlers who traveled among towns
with names like Smoky Holler and Shallowford Hill – Willet had started out with a permanent
establishment, and the snakes had come to him. All he‘d done was to open the door and spread the word,
and the little white boxes had begun to appear on Prayer Meeting night.
There had been enough snake handlers left over from the glory days of the Church of the Blessed
Jesus to get the ball rolling. After Emma Poss (who did eventually die of snakebite, although her husband
told the authorities that the incident had occurred while they were picnicking in the woods), other women
began attending regularly, making Prayer Meeting Wednesday truly a family event.
First came the service, with singing and prayer and healing and preaching, followed by the
fellowship hour, when the ladies would bring out casseroles and pies and gallons of sweet tea. Afterward, it
would be dark, and anyone who didn‘t belong would get along home. Then the snake handling would get
underway.
They were eager. Some of them only wanted to touch their own snakes, stretching them out fulllength for everyone to see before setting them loose on their bodies. As the serpents crawled around their
limbs and heads, Willet would recite Gospel while the snake handlers spoke in tongues or gave in to
rapture, sometimes falling on the floor wracked by convulsions of ecstasy. Once in a while a poison-drinker
would show up with a bottle of battery acid or strychnine, and there wasn‘t anything Willet could do about
that except hope the crazy S.O.B didn‘t drop dead in the middle of the service.
At any rate, Willet‘s hands were always clean, which was why the Church of the Divine Redeemer
could continue in one location instead of moving from house to house like most of the snake churches in
Tennessee. But that caused a problem, too. Because Willet wasn‘t a snake handler himself, he had to hold
the church together by the sheer strength of his preaching.
Now that strength was ebbing. Today was the first time J.J. had been given the Wednesday night
service. For nearly a year, he had allowed Willet to treat him like his personal valet, but those days were
coming to an end. He was on the throne chair now, and everyone knew it.
So Carlton Willet, Jr. folded his arms and acted as if it didn‘t matter which chair he sat in, and if
he were asked, he would have laughed and said that he hadn‘t even known there was such a thing as a
hierarchy of chairs. But J.J. Johnson, who knew that his own star was on the ascendency, could only smile
as Victoria Tanner and her chubby teenage brat entered the room with tentative, uncertain steps.
Tonight he would give them all a show to remember.
Chapter Fifty Seven
Liz
Victoria checked her watch for the hundredth time. Okay, J.J. had a nice ass, but enough was
enough. One hour and fifteen minutes, and they‘d just gotten through the second hymn. And there weren‘t
even any hymnals. Everyone was expected to know all the words.
Liz dozed beside her, snorting awake only when her mother poked her. ―For God‘s sake, pay
attention!‖ Victoria hissed.
―Why?‖ Liz answered sleepily, wiping a pool of drool off her cheek with the back of her hand.
―Your father‘s preaching,‖ Victoria said proudly, clearly deep into her own somnambulistic
fantasy.
―My… what?‖ She was loud. People turned to stare at her. ―For one thing, he‘s not old enough to
be my father.‖
―All right,‖ Victoria whispered, putting a finger to her own lips, her face crimson.
―And also, he‘s a total dick.‖
―Elizabeth!‖
―Young lady?‖ The voice rang out.
―Oh, my God,‖ Victoria said.
―Young lady?‖
Liz looked up. It was J.J., smiling at her from behind the tabletop lectern that passed for a pulpit.
―Come on up here, pretty girl.‖
Mortified, Liz pointed at herself, her eyebrows raised.
―Yes, you. Let‘s give her a hand there, folks.‖
The congregation burst into applause.
―You‘ve done it this time,‖ Victoria said.
―I‘m not going up there.‖
Victoria pushed her out of her seat. Liz staggered into the aisle, looking around in terror while
everyone continued to clap as if she were a celebrity picking up an award. Finally, realizing she had no
choice, she meandered to the front of the cinder block-lined room, where J.J. put his arm around her.
―Now, y‘all are probably wondering why I‘ve brought this young lady up here in front of y‘all,‖
J.J. said affably.
All Liz could think about was how hot it was in there, despite the fact that it was late November.
―Well, the fact is, this youngster has a problem.‖ His voice had grown deep and intimate.
―No, I don‘t,‖ Liz said crankily. ―Y‘all,‖ she added pointedly.
J.J. ignored her. ―She has committed the error – now, I said error, not sin – the error of
disobedience to her mama.‖
Liz‘ mouth dropped open. She made an I-don‘t-believe-this-guy face, then picked her mother out
of the crowd and focused on her with narrowed, accusing eyes.
―It seems that no matter what her hardworking mama does, how much she sacrifices for her
daughter, how she tries to guide young Elizabeth here… it is Elizabeth, isn‘t it?‖
Liz glared at him in silence.
―No matter how bravely her mama tries to lead Elizabeth in the path of righteousness, she just
goes her own way, doing what she feels like doing, even if it leads her into degradation and sin.‖
―Hey, that‘s not –‖
―Hay‘s what you feed horses, girl.‖
The congregation laughed.
―Now, I don‘t want you to think that I‘ve brought you up here to pick on you, little darlin‘,
because that is not my intention. In fact, your problem is so commonplace that I‘ll bet there isn‘t a parent in
this room who doesn‘t know what I‘m talking about.‖ He looked away fro Liz and into the congregation.
―Am I right, folks?‖
―Amen,‖ someone said. There was a smattering of applause indicating agreement.
―So I hope you can just bear with me a tad, Elizabeth. Can you do that?‖
Reluctantly, blushing wildly, Liz nodded.
―Good. Now this is the question I put before you good folks: Is this young person walking down
the path to perdition because she is evil? I ask you, has this sixteen-year-old made a decision to follow in
Satan‘s footsteps? Is she what you‘d call irredeemably lost?‖
He paused for a moment, then bellowed, ―No!‖
―Amen,‖ some members of the congregation declared.
―No, I tell you, she is not of the devil! No, she is not evil, not degenerate, not degraded because of
her own doing! No, no, and again no!‖
Out of her peripheral vision, Liz saw Reverend Willet roll his eyes and yawn.
―No!‖ repeated J.J. in a whisper that resonated throughout the room. ―This girl, this child…‖
He clasped both sides of Liz‘ face between his hands. ―This precious angel has fallen into the ways of Hell
because of one thing and one thing only.‖
He paused for effect. Then suddenly, dramatically, he raised his left hand, his index finger
pointing eastward. ―The SIN FEST next door!‖ he shouted.
Liz blinked in surprise. So did Victoria, although she quickly concealed her astonishment by
mumbling ―Amen.‖
―They call it the Pagan Trailer Park, and pagans do live there, as well as homosexual men, lesbian
women, fornicators, adulterers, drug addicts and alcoholics. They have erected, outdoors, in full view of
anyone who happens to pass by, an obscene shrine featuring the private parts of a woman. They have orgies
where people of different races play out their animalistic instincts on one another. They practice every
perversion and degradation known to man, and they invite young people like Elizabeth here to join them in
their depravity.‖
―Mercy!‖ a woman shouted.
―That‘s not true!‖ Liz protested.
―Isn‘t it?‖ With stunning force, J.J. whirled Liz around to face him. Are you prepared to say, in
front of these people and Almighty God Himself, that you have not, have never, gone to the trailer park
next door?‖
Liz stammered, ―Well, of course I‘ve been there –‖
―And did you not go at the express invitation of the adult residents of the trailer park, even though
no other children your age were invited?‖
―It‘s…It‘s not like that,‖ Liz waffled.
―I tell you, they feel no shame, those people!‖ J.J. was addressing the congregation again. ―Their
wickedness knows no limit. Again and again they have lured Elizabeth into their clutches. Her mother has
begged them, pleaded with them, to leave her precious daughter alone, but they will not be stopped. Their
goal is to corrupt every young person, every holy person, every decent person, until the whole world is as
dark and evil as they are.‖
He took a moment to pull himself together through a series of twitches and shimmies, as if the
taint of iniquity emanating from the sin fest next door were so thick that J.J. had to shake it off him.
As the congregation muttered and grumbled in outrage, Liz tried to leave the stage, but J.J. got an
iron grip on her arm. ―You see, the devil‘s on her now!‖ he shouted, pulling her back to him. ―She wants to
go to them, even now, while bearing witness in this house of God! Even now, the fire of wickedness is
burning at her soul!‖
―No,‖ Liz protested, trying to shake J.J. off. ―Really, I‘ve just got to go –‖
―Do you ask what we can do, neighbors?‖ J.J.‘s face was open, hopeful.
A resounding ―yes!‖ thundered from the congregation. Stomping of feet. Shaking of chairs.
―Well, I‘ll tell you. We can‘t do a dad-blasted thing.‖
J.J. had to call over Rev. Willet to hold Liz‘s hands behind her back so that he himself could wave
down the rising ire of the crowd.
―We tried,‖ he said, his hands held out to his sides in helpless resignation. ―Our petition was met
with sneers from the magistrate. Why was that? I ask you. Has, perhaps, the long arm of Satan stretched
into the halls of justice?‖
Much commotion.
―Yes, I know. You fear it has, and I do, too.‖ Again he pointed dramatically in the direction of
Elysian Fields. ―They have got the Episcopal Church in their clutches. They have got the Beltsville school
board in their pockets. They even have the lawmakers of this county in thrall to the devil‘s tune.‖
He threw his hands up in the air in supplication. ―What could we do? I repeat, nothing. We could
do nothing against evil of this magnitude.‖
Silence.
―Except pray‖
―Amen.‖
―We prayed.‖
―Hallelujah.‖
―Some people say prayer doesn‘t work. Those pagans say that, for sure. We said we‘re going to
pray you back to Hell, where you came from, and they said, you try it.‖ A brief but decisive nod of the
head. ―So we prayed. And do you know what?‖
―Tell us, brother!‖
―Amen!‖
―We could do nothing.‖
―Amen!‖
―I said we could do nothing.‖
―Oh, Lordie!‖
―But God could do something!‖
―Hallelujah!‖
―God could help, couldn‘t he!‖ He stretched out the word God to take up a full second.
―Praise be.‖
―God could help… and he did!‖
―How, Brother Preacher?‖
―By sending His instrument,‖ J.J. said. ―His instrument‘s name is Henry May. I‘ve just paid a visit
to Mr. May in the county jail, where he is incarcerated for going to church.‖
Cries of outrage.
―Trouble is, Henry May is a simple-minded, plain-speaking man, and his problem was that he
picked the wrong church to go to. He went to St. Peter‘s church down in Beltsville, which has been held
under the spell of the Pagan Trailer Park for some time now. Anyway, it was in St.Peter‘s that Mr. May met
Henrietta Yauch, a colored girl who some say is the illegitimate daughter of the priest who runs that sorry
excuse for a church. Being a simple-minded man, Henry May said the first thing that came into his mind,
which was that he remembered Miss Yauch from the days when she worked as a prostitute up on Belt
Mountain.‖
Exclamations and chair-scraping.
―As I said, neighbors, he‘s a simple man. He wasn‘t used to lying. He thought he was just making
conversation.‖ J.J. shrugged elaborately while his audience laughed anew. Meanwhile, Rev. Willet was
struggling to keep Liz in her spot on stage. With a look, he persuaded a hefty middle-aged man with a
beard to take his place subduing Liz so that he could return to the pastor‘s area, where he passed up his
assigned seat and sat down in the throne chair. It was going to be a long sermon, after all. There was no
point in being uncomfortable.
―But the colored prostitute, she didn‘t like being reminded of how she used to pass her time before
her father, Father Follett, that is, priest of the Church of St. Peter, decided to ‗adopt‘ her.‖ He made
quotation marks with his fingers.
―So she called for two of her cronies from the Depths to do what they could to this simple man,
Henry May. First, she called upon the harpy Katherine Davis, the church organist who has arranged for her
husband to sleep in a tent outside the trailer where she regularly fornicates with another man, Forrest
McCormick who, I‘m sorry to say, is himself not only a church choir director, but a teacher in the Beltsville
public school system. Are you following all this?‖
Liz screamed. ―Stop it!‖
―Do you hear that?‖ J.J. shouted over her, sweat dripping from his brow as he struggled with the
burly congregant to contain Liz Petrovsky. ―It is Beelzebub, ladies and gentlemen, it is Lilith, it is Satan‘s
handmaid shrieking her love for the prince of Darkness.‖
―Mom!‖ Liz wailed.
―Keep her quiet, will you?‖ J.J. asked his assistant in a low voice. Someone in the back of the
room offered a roll of duct tape, and the man nodded.
―Now this man of which I speak, this teacher entrusted with our precious, precious children, did
seduce and corrupt this angel, right in his classroom.‖
―No!‖
―Yes!‘ J.J. insisted. ―Yes, it is horrible. Yes, it is disgusting. But I swear to you on all that is holy,
everything I have told you and am telling you and am about to tell you is the truth.‖ He crossed his heart. ―I
swear it.‖
A woman near the front dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
―Yes, Ma‘am, I swear to you that this man, this Forrest McCormick, in order to make his point, to
spit in the face of all that is righteous, this man, this teacher, not only kissed this girl who stands before you
in her school classroom, but did so in full view of her mother, who tried valiantly to stop him…‖
―Shut up!‖ Liz screamed.
―Do you deny it?‖ J.J. badgered. ―Do you deny a single word I‘ve said?‖
Liz bellowed in frustration, pistoning her arms and trying to kick her captor in the legs. The
bearded man caught the roll of tape that was thrown to him, and awkwardly managed to wrap it around Liz‘
head, tangling it in her hair. She swung her head around, her eyes rolling like an animal being led to
slaughter, moving around so desperately that she looked almost comical. But no one was watching her.
Every eye was on J.J., Preacher Johnson.
―But Forrest McCormick had the weight and sanction of the school board behind him, and so he
cared nothing for the poor mother‘s pleas to let her little girl be.
―This, ladies and gentlemen, this is the man the colored prostitute and the adulterous church
organist set against poor simple-minded Henry May.‖ J.J. was stomping up and known by now, gesturing
toward the empty floor as if witnessing the fate of the hapless Henry May at the hands of the evil music
impresario.
―Forrest McCormick, with all the strength of the Dark Forces behind him, threw poor Henry –
who doesn‘t stand but five feet tall – threw him onto the ground of the parking lot and was dragging him
into the bushes to do Lord knows what to him.‖
Liz‘ nose was running over the duct tape covering her mouth. Her eyes were streaming. J.J. stood
in front of her to block her from view.
―Then, and only then, did simple-minded Henry May remember that he had on his person a
pocketknife,‖ J.J. said. ―A pocketknife – not much good for anything ‗cept picking your teeth, as you
gen‘men will attest, but it was all he had.
―So as Henry was being dragged off into the bushes by Mr. McCormick, he took out that little
bitty next-to-useless pocketknife and struck out with it.‖ J.J. accompanied this section of the story with a
seemingly uncontrollable flailing of his arms, as if Henry May were out of his mind with terror.
―He struck out, neighbors. He struck out, and by a miracle – a miracle, I tell you – he managed to
stop the fiend McCormick from killing him.‖
―Praise the Lord.‖
―Hallelujah.‖
―Amen.‖
―Afterward, the fiend‘s cohorts took him directly to the hospital. They did not call the police, or
yours truly might have been able to shed some light on the truth. But as it as, it was just one man‘s word
against another‘s, plus the testimony of the devil‘s disciples down at the Pagan Trailer Park. By the way,
the colored prostitute, remember her? Well it turns out she holds a high position at the hospital.‖
―So Beltsville Memorial‘s in on it, too,‖ someone volunteered.
J.J. spread his hands. ―In the Savior‘s own words, ‗you have said it,‘ brother.‖ He shook his head.
―That forced Chief Lontz‘ hand. When they lie together, it makes a sound almost like the truth. But it‘s still
a lie,‖ he said.
―Amen.‖ Stomping. Scratching. Scraping. The women were beginning to look toward the picnic
baskets on their laps. Some of the little white cubes containing the snakes were beginning to move by
themselves on the floor. Rev. Willet cast a quick glance over at the big pine snake box, where people had
already placed a number of restless vipers. The last thing he wanted to see was the hinged lid of that box
creak open.
―Poor Henry May didn‘t have a chance against the mass of evil arrayed against him. And that‘s
why he‘s sitting in the county jail now awaiting trial, instead of being in here with us, celebrating the good
news.‖
―More‘s the pity.‖
―Ah, but do you know what those Satan-worshippers at the trailer park are doing to celebrate their
great victory over little Henry May?‖ J.J. hunkered down, balancing himself on the balls of his feet. ―I‘ll
tell you. They‘re planning a concert, ladies and gentlemen. I got the flier right here.‖
He brandished a sheet of green paper with holly leaves drawn in the corners. ―A concert of
original Christmas music by Forrest McCormick,‖ J.J. read. ―The date for this alleged ‗Christmas‘ concert
is December twenty first. Does anyone here know the significance of that date?‖ he asked.
No one answered.
―No, you folks wouldn‘t know that date, because you‘re Christians, and for you, the high point of
the season is December twenty fifth, the date our Lord and Savior was born.
―But the pagans at the Pagan Trailer Park don‘t care about that date. No. Their big holiday is the
Winter Solstice, the Witches‘ solstice, December the twenty first, the shortest day of the year. The day, my
friends, when Darkness wins the battle against Light. That is the significance of that date. That is why that
date has been celebrated by witches since the beginning of time. It is the victory of the Darkness.‖
The room was silent. J.J. allowed everyone to wallow in it for a long moment.
Finally he turned to Liz. ―Now, I‘m sorry for the inconvenience, little lady, but I wanted you to
hear the truth about your so-called friends. Because they are not friends at all, but your worst enemies. Do
you see that now?‖
Liz nodded.
―Hallelujah,‖ he said, his voice filled with relief.
―Hallelujah,‖ the congregation repeated.
―I‘m going to take this tape off now, and I hope you‘ll excuse me for whatever discomfort and
embarrassment it may have caused you. Is that all right?‖ He smiled. ―Can I take this ol‘ sticky tape off
now?‖
Liz nodded again.
―May your words be blessed,‖ J.J. said, pulling off the tape. ―May you – cunt!‖ He pulled his
hand away. It was covered with blood. So was Liz‘s mouth. She had chomped down as hard as she could.
―Why, you fat little bitch,‖ he said, grabbing her by the front of her blouse and throwing her
toward the far wall. She screamed, hitting Rev. Willet‘s throne chair, then careening off it to smash against
the altar. With her usual flamboyant clumsiness, Liz kept going, crashing into a low table on which a Bible
had been placed, and then into the hinged pine box. It tottered precariously. It tipped. The hinged lid
flapped.
Suddenly every voice in the room was stilled.
Liz was on the floor, trying awkwardly to bring herself to a standing position. ―What?‖ she asked,
aware of the sudden silence. She struggled to pull the tape off her, but it was tangled all through her hair,
causing her to cry out with the pain. Finally she left the tape in a collar around her neck while she wiped the
tears from her face. Her dirty hands left black streaks on her cheeks.
―What?‖ she asked again, looking from one blank face to another.
The box fell over on its side. A woman screamed.
―Holy jumping Jesus,‖ Rev. Willet rasped, getting quickly to his feet and running down the aisle
toward the doors at the back of the windowless room.
By the time the first snake slithered out, the door was already jammed with people desperate to get
out. J.J. was slinking along the wall toward them. A few people moved in the direction of the snakes,
silently, one with a snake-catching rod, the others bare-handed.
Among them, Liz was frozen in a position that was half-crouching, half-kneeling. Her face was
white beneath the dark smudges.
In between these two extremes, the silent stalking at the front of the church and the frantic melee
at the rear, stood Victoria Tanner, rising slowly onto her high heels, her pencil skirt shimmying with the
trembling of her thighs. ―My baby,‖ she whispered, sprinting toward the altar.
―Hold it,‖ one of the snake handlers said. ―There‘s a rattler…‖
With a scream like the cry of a Valkyrie, Victoria spotted the snake and stomped on its head.
―Mom,‖ Liz cried as the snake whipped around in a frenzy. The man with the snake-catcher
scooped a loop around its squashed head and threw it into a sack.
―We‘re going,‖ Victoria announced, putting her arm around Liz. ―Let us through.‖ Such was her
wrath that the people at the door, themselves crazed to get out of the room, actually moved out of her way.
The last person she encountered was J.J. Johnson. He looked from Victoria to Liz, then back to
Victoria with a disgusted shrug. ―Bring her back next week,‖ he said.
Victoria kicked him, smearing effluent from the snake‘s brains onto his trousers. ―You lying sack
of shit,‖ she said.
J.J.‘s eyes looked as if they were on fire. ―Not a single word of what I said was a lie, and you
know it,‖ he said, loudly, for the benefit of bystanders.
Victoria sighed. ―You‘re right. The words weren‘t lies. Just everything else.‖ She pushed him
aside. ―If you ever come near my daughter again, I‘ll kill you,‖ she said. ―And if you think I’m lying, try
me.‖
Liz laughed in delight and amazement as her mother walked arm in arm with her to the car.
(Extra Space)
You killed a rattlesnake,‖ Liz said once they were on the road.
Victoria said nothing as she drove, but her hands were shaking so hard that before they reached
Route 33, she had to stop the car.
―Hey, Mom, are you okay?‖ Liz asked.
Victoria nodded once, then opened the door, leaned out, and vomited.
Liz smiled. ―I guess you really do love me,‖ she said. ―Sometimes, anyway.‖
Victoria heaved herself back into the car. ―Get me a breath mint from my purse,‖ she said.
(Extra Space)
―Cunt!‖
J.J. stood naked among the trees and screamed like a wild animal.
He was in his hollow, far enough away from the nearest house that no one would hear him. Or if
they did, it was still too far for anyone to come investigating out of curiousity, not in the middle of the
night.
He had thought of the hollow as his own, his private sanctuary, since he‘d first stumbled across it
as a boy, when he had followed the sound of his dog howling. The Johnsons were from the far side of Belt
Mountain, away from the city lights of Beltsville. J.J.‘s father had kicked the dog in a drunken rampage
after he‘d beaten his wife and broken J.J.‘s arm. The animal‘s shoulder had been dislocated, and it had
yelped in pain through its long journey across the mountain, past the Danforths‘ still and the tumbledown
shack that used to be the old whorehouse, past the cabins where a half dozen branches of the Ealy family
lived, all of them cross-eyed and red-headed, all related, gas lights burning in their windows. J.J. had been
careful passing them: The Ealys would shoot before they‘d even think about asking a question. It was a
good bet that one of them, having heard the dog, was standing outside the in shadows of the cabin now with
a 12-gauge in his hands.
J.J. had followed the dog to the hollow, a scooped-out place bounded by moss-covered boulders
and filled at the time with fallen leaves, where it lay panting and glassy-eyed.
―Duke,‖ he said, although no one called the dog that except for J.J., who had found it as a puppy in
the creek in a sack with the bodies of four littermates. Duke‘s tail thumped once. He had stopped howling.
J.J. saw it then, the two puncture marks on the dog‘s neck.
He jumped up and raked the hollow with a stick until he was certain the snake had gone. By that
time the dog was already dead, its eyes reflecting the moonlight that shone through the trees. J.J. had cried,
cradling Duke in his one good arm while the other hung useless and throbbing at his side. And then
afterward, after he had dragged the dog by its tail over the boulders to a clearing beside a hollow tree, he
had returned to the hollow and cried some more, for Duke and for himself, for the pain in his arm and the
prison of his life. He had cried and shouted and taken off his clothes and screamed like a howling wolf. He
had quoted Bible verses he didn‘t know the meaning of, and screamed curse words, calling his father a
whore fucker and an asshole until his throat was raw, and waved his scrotum at the moon as a sign of
defiance and disrespect to everything, and then masturbated wildly before finally falling asleep in the
hollow.
It had been his secret place since then. He had gone there after he had put his wife out, to pour out
his hatred of women to the listening oaks. He had stood in the hollow, his body smeared with mud, after he
had left the flaming wreckage of the Metropolitan Church. He had come to this place to shiver, wretched
and confused, after shooting Greg Hanson during the crack house raid.
He had loved Greg like a brother, looked up to him, wanted to please him. They‘d been known as
the two best-looking guys on the force. Women would make a point of hanging out at the Ooltewah Diner
when J.J. and Greg came in for their lunch break.
It had all happened in a second, it seemed, after the hours of boredom during the stakeout, when
sometimes you told your partner things you hadn‘t been able to say out loud to anyone else. He‘d talked
about his wife, and Greg had laughed easily, saying it was going to work out, that she‘d come back. J.J. had
said he didn‘t even want her, the bitch could eat shit and die, and Greg had looked at him all lazy and
comfortable, with those eyes blue like the ocean.
And then, it was that quick, he was pulling away. He shoved him aside like J.J. was some bum
come to beg money, and the coffee spilled all over J.J.‘s hard crotch, and a sound came out of J.J.‘s mouth
that he didn‘t even know he was making, a sound like a cat, a cry of shame. But even Greg didn‘t hear it
because in that second there was a gunshot from inside the crack house.
Greg radioed that they were going in, and afterward it was pure adrenaline. J.J. broke down the
door, and there were shots from everywhere, even though there were only two men and a woman inside.
Greg shot both men and then, before he could turn around, J.J. fired a round into his partner‘s back. Then
he turned to the woman, who had seen everything and was kneeling on the mattress on the floor looking
confused and scared, and so he shot her, too, in her stupid cow face. Then he picked up Greg‘s radio and
called it in.
That night he had come to the hollow, his secret place, where he had writhed in his shame like a
worm. He had lain naked and worthless through the night until he heard, with the first rays of morning, the
voice of the Creator telling him that all would be well. You are forgiven, the Almighty One said, and you
will be a fisher of men. In this way will you atone for your sin.
Yes, J.J. thought. It had nothing to do with the law. This was God‘s law, God‘s plan for him. He
had had to do what he did in order to see the error of his ways. And now he would correct those ways by
walking forevermore in the paths of righteousness.
He had resigned from the police force, and the Chief had understood. Losing your partner was a
heavy burden for a rookie to carry, even though Greg Hanson didn‘t die. As it turned out, Greg never saw
who shot him. But of course it had to have been the woman in the crack house, because she was the only
one still alive at the time. And she surely would have fired at J.J., too, if he hadn‘t taken her down first.
J.J. received a medal for his actions, which was delivered to his home eight weeks after his
resignation. ―I‘m a man of God now,‖ he said. The newspaper quoted him.
(Extra Space)
He was back in the hollow now, in the secret place that washed him of all sin and shame. He was
dancing, dancing in the way of the Red Man, leaping over the boulders and shooting out his arms, sweating
with his exertion. Smears of red clay marked his cheeks. Reeds were tied around his penis. His breath
billowed in the cold of night.
The cunt! The cunt!
She had kicked him, kicked him in front of his congregation! And her blimp of a daughter had bit
him! The wound was already becoming infected. His thumb was swelling.
He had been shot out from inside his own stockade. The bitch had been one of them, them, all
along. She had come to church to sabotage him.
J.J. threw a rock against a tree, and then another, and another, screaming out his rage with each
blow. Steam rose from his body; he could smell his own odor.
Well, she had made a big mistake when she chose to side with the pagans against him. Him and
the Lord.
―Me and the Lord!‖ J.J. shouted, thumping his chest. ―Me! And! The! Lord! God!‖
(Extra Space)
Back at the church, he walked into the windowless cement block room that had passed for an
office and, more recently, as J.J.‘s home. He filled a basin with cold water from a jug and washed in it,
wiping the stripes from his face, shivering as the icy cold hit the sweat on his body. In an alcove of the
room, separated from the office by a curtain, was a folding cot and a blanket. He took these out and set up
the cot, but it was not yet time for sleep. First was his duty to the other soldiers in the fight for
righteousness. Wearily he unlocked the center drawer in the desk that held pride of place in the room and
took out his laptop. With a sigh, he began to write.
Unconquerable 88: The Pagan Trailer Park is a canker on the face of God that must be
destroyed. Decent Christians do not want this abomination, with its cauldron of homoxesuals,
lesbians, prostitutes, mixed-race orgies, papists, drug users, alcoholics, adulteresses, child molesters,
and pornographers. There is not one normal human being among them. They are a blight on
humanity, and should not be permitted to live amongst sober God-fearing people. I call upon those of
you who are willing to serve as warriors in the battle against evil to contact me. Their time is coming,
and it is of their own choosing: In the hour of darkness will these demons return to the fires that
spawned them.
On December 21, J.J.‘s problem with the Elysian Fields was going to end. The solution had come
to him in an epiphany in his fortress of solitude. God had not failed him.
He made a list of six people he was going to call in the morning. Then he wrapped himself in the
blanket and lay down on the cot to sleep.
(Extra Space)
Victoria also made one phone call. Only one.
When she was finished, she turned off the lights and walked up the stairs to her daughter‘s
bedroom. ―Elizabeth?‖ she called softly from the door.
―Huh?‖
―Are you still awake?‖
―Sure.‖ She put down the book she was reading. ―What‘s up?‖
Victoria stuck her head in. ―I do love you,‖ she said. ―It‘s hard for me to say because…‖
―Because?‖
―Because no one ever loved me.‖
―I do,‖ Liz said.
Victoria‘s mouth worked. She wasn‘t going to cry. She never cried. She wouldn‘t now.
―It‘s okay to be human, Mom. Even for you.‖
―Oh!‖ Victoria puffed in exasperation. ―You have to ruin everything!‖ She closed the door.
―Good night, Mom.‖
―Good night, Liz,‖ she said quietly from the hall.
Liz smiled. Her mother had finally gotten her name right.
Part VIII
Yule
December 21
The Winter Solstice, occurring on the darkest day of the year, reminds us of the frailty of life. The
Goddess has left us to our own devices in the face of cold and privation. We must sustain ourselves on the
stores of the time of abundance, now long past. We come together in friendship, forgiving all that has gone
before, because we know that some of us – perhaps we ourselves – will not survive the winter. Our ties, so
easily broken, become precious; and our lives, fragile as spiders’ webs, become vessels no longer of
passion, but of memory.
It is a melancholy time, filled with regret, perhaps, but also bringing hope. For on this darkest
day, the light begins its journey toward summer. The Solstice celebrates not darkness, but the emergence of
the Infant Light out of that darkness. And through it all, we know the Goddess, like the sun, will return once
again, and the cycle will repeat, darkness into light, sadness into joy, pain into wisdom.
All is well.
Chapter Fifty Eight
Araiama
I shivered in the night. My bones ached. Sometimes I dreamed that I was still on the ship,
soaked with cold sea spray and rocking endlessly into oblivion. Then I would awake, freezing in my own
sweat, my fingers clutching at the precious earth around me.
One morning I opened my eyes to see my young friend, Ixlata, standing over me. ―Momo,‖ I
said, becoming confused. With age and the fever that I knew was raging beneath my skin, the past and
present all seemed to melt together. What I did as a child became what I did yesterday.
Povier was still alive, strong and male, singing the songs of his faraway village. Sometimes, in my
memory, his face would transform into the Keltoi commander’s, resolute and disciplined, even as his
eyes softened at the sight of me. And then we would both remember our time in the lagoon making love
among the snakes, needing so desperately the touch of another loving being, grasping at that love,
taking it for whatever brief time we could.
Perhaps, in some inner part of my soul, I had known that it would be the last time I would love a
man with my body. Had he found another woman? I wondered. Had he lived through the slave rebellion
that had ultimately brought me to this beautiful and primitive place?
I hoped so. Even though he was my enemy, our similarities far outweighed our differences. No
one thinks of himself as evil. None of us, even I who have lived with a deathwish for half my life, fully
believes that one’s life was utterly misdirected. We each of us need to feel that we deserve the kindness
of another heart touching ours. Love is always stronger than pain.
And so when I saw Ixlata first standing above me, and then wrapping a warm blanket around
me, it was as if the terror of the past had never happened. As if Momo and Willow and the others were
still alive, and the Goddess were still smiling on us all.
I must have had a fever, because those interspersing images of Momo and Ixlata continued for
some time. She built a shelter around me, and kept a fire burning all night while she fed me broth and
water.
This, for a stranger who had told her she would not offer a prayer to keep her alive.
By the time I recovered, it was full winter, with a cold wind blowing and the river turned to ice. I
had traveled to the other side of the river, and climbed a steep path until I stood at the top of a cliff
overlooking the water.
So this is where I shall die, I remember thinking on the first morning I was well enough to
appreciate it. That thought made me deeply happy. I’d had a thousand opportunities to die – on the
journey with my tribe, when I was still Snake finder, during the massacre in the temple near the sea with
my acolytes, during my hungry travels when I exchanged my stories for bread and shelter, on the plagueinfested warship – but of all the places where Mari could have chosen to end my life, this was the most
lovely, the kindest to my eyes and my soul within me. Even in winter, the severe beauty of this land
caused my heart to sing.
Grace. It is the miracle of undeserved kindness, the bestowing of love for its own sake.
I have learned from my long and troubled life that I am finally able to forgive. I have learned to
give up on the past, its injustices and outrages, even its tender beauties that I once wished to repeat
again and again. I no longer do. In the end, however I may see them, the events of my life have come and
gone, like leaves on the wind. Whatever has happened, for good or ill, was just the way of things.
Mari, my creator, gave me this life to accept or not, to rail at with clenched fists or to ride easily.
I railed. I fought. I objected. I devoted every thought, every moment, every impulse of my body, to the
task of trying to persuade Mari to change Her mind, to take it back, to replace it, or at least a part of it,
with another life, another outcome.
But Mari has granted me grace. She has said, This is my gift to you. You do not have to
thank me for it, or even welcome it. I give you this gift – this love – freely, with an open hand.
I knew then that I was forgiven. My penance would still have to be paid – I had cursed myself,
after all – but I was not hated. I had been created in love, and even if my creator ceased to exist, if the
name of Mari were gone and forgotten over all the world, and the time of the Goddess were to
disappear forever my life, this great gift will still have been given to me.
That was when I decided to build this shrine. It was not to Mari. It was to Mari’s gift. To life,
however brief or painful it may be. To grace.
(Extra Space)
I had been working on it for two days when Ixlata came again. She was very ill. Her lips were
blue and her eyes betrayed the pain in her body.
―Help me,‖ I said. ―This is for you, too.‖
I don’t know if she understood my words, but she set about building the arch as if it were he
own labor of love, cutting the green branches off the young trees that were to serve as the supporting
posts, affixing the crosspiece with strips of animal hide, decorating it with birds’ feathers and winter
berries.
When at last it was finished, Ixlata could barely stand. Beneath the shrine, I bade her sit. I gave
her water heated in my fire and served in a dried gourd. I covered her with the blanket she had brought
for me.
―Wait here,‖ I instructed her as I went into the woods to gather the things I would need.
Then I set out to prepare for my journey. And hers.
(Extra Space)
Four days after my aborted rendezvous with Desmond, I read online that he and Toni Berenstein
had gotten married at their summer home on Squirrel Island.
So that had been the reason for the desperate late-night phone call, the declarations of undying
love: Desmond had come down with a temporary case of pre-nuptial cold feet. He‘d panicked, gotten
drunk, called me, and then fallen asleep and forgotten all about it. Vintage Desmond.
The bride wore a dress of cream-colored velvet.
I don‘t know how I was able to write now, with my heart full of daggers, when it took so little to
dry me up before, but then, there is so much I don‘t know. Why did the Goddess keep Araiama alive when
all she wanted was to die? Why, when I had no hope at all left, did Araiama‘s story continue to pour out of
my fingertips?
All my life I have dreaded those moments between the bubbles of my making, when I would find
myself in the bare cement chamber of my meager experience, looking about me and whispering, None of it
is real. None of these worlds, these bubbles, this truth, is real. Only the cement room is real.
After humiliating myself with Desmond, those bare cement walls had become acceptable to me.
They were my life. They were what I deserved. And yet at this, of all times, for reasons utterly unknown to
me, I was given a bubble to live in, Araiama‘s bubble, her world.
How would I live without Desmond? I knew the answer: Like this. Here, in the bubble of
Araiama‘s life, in the virgin land I had created for her, was where I wanted, needed, to live. It may have
been, if Araiama‘s views of destiny were to be believed, where I was fated to live.
Desmond would never change. Whether he spent the rest of his life with his new wife or not, his
world would never grow large enough to include anyone except himself.
Some clichés are true: Artists are selfish. They make magic out of their lives, and though that
magic may hold others in thrall, that is not the reason why the magic is made. No, the magician – the artist
– does what he does only to keep himself alive.
Perhaps Desmond, in his way, also felt trapped inside an airless cement box, and had to create an
imitation life in order to tolerate the real one.
I didn‘t know. But if it were true, then I understood. And I forgave him. Finally, totally,
unconditionally, I pardoned him for all the things he did and didn‘t do, all that was left undone, all the sins
he had not known he‘d committed, and those he did not commit. And I forgave myself, too, for my selfpity. For my foolishness. For Ben‘s death.
My son had died, and it had been no one‘s fault, no matter how much I had wanted it to be, just so
that I would have something to blame for the greatest loss I would ever suffer. Something that would make
more of my precious son‘s death than the mere whim of chance. But that was what it was, chance , no
more than an insect splatting across the windshield of a passing car, or the outcome of a battle that would
change the course of history.
We live and we die. Some of us die prematurely, unfairly. Some of us live too long. Life is not a
sign of God‘s favor; it is just the way of things.
(Extra Space)
I found my wedding ring in my jewelry box and took it to Araiama‘s monolith. It had been
constructed cleverly, whether Charlie Nolan had intended it or not. In order to stand directly in front of the
monolith, one had to pass beneath the Torii shrine.
I stood there, sanctified by Doralee Roberts‘ medicine pole, while I held the ring up to the
sunlight.
―Goodbye, Desmond,‖ I said, dropping it into the vaginal opening of Andras‘ clock. It hit bottom
with a little clink. ―Fare thee well.‖
The wind blew fresh and cold across the lake.
Chapter Fifty Nine
Ensemble
―Mo?‖
She gasped in surprise. Whirling around, she saw with some irritation that it was Victoria Tanner.
A man was with her, a bureaucrat from the look of him, cut from the same cloth as J.J. Johnson – clean,
vaguely military, still, silent. Victoria introduced him as Tom Sheehan, but did so without her customary
simpering possessiveness.
Official business, then, Mo thought with a pang of dread. The next move by the Church of the
Divine Redeemer to dispossess everyone at Elysian Fields.
―Can we talk to you inside?‖ Victoria asked. ―It‘s important.‖
Mo sighed. ―I wish you‘d called first.‖
―I‘m sorry.‖
Mo frowned. This did not sound like the Victoria Tanner whom she had grown to know and
detest. ―All right,‖ she said. She led them toward the cabin.
It was warm inside. Mo had built a fire before starting work for the day. She gestured toward the
chairs around the hearth. ―Is this about the church next door?‖
―Yes, but it‘s not what you think.‖
Through the exchange, Tom Sheehan stood impassive and expressionless. Victoria, on the other
hand, was anxious, nervous, worried. She sat down. Sheehan took something from his suit pocket. It was a
photo I.D. from the FBI.
Mo looked up, suddenly alarmed. ―What‘s this about?‖
―Mrs. Owens, we understand that some threats have been made against the residents of this
community, both directly and obliquely,‖ he said.
―It‘s J.J.,‖ Victoria interjected.
―What?‖
She leaned forward, as if she were telling Mo a secret. ―He‘s been getting all worked up about the
concert.‖
Mo shook her head. ―Well, I suppose he can relax now. The concert‘s been cancelled.‖
―We‘ve been watching Mr. Johnson for some time,‖ the FBI man said. ―We‘ve established that he
uses an online identity known as ‗Unconquerable 88‘, and as such, he‘s posted some writings that may link
him to a federal crime in the past. From recent events, we have reason to believe he may try something in
connection with this concert.‖ He produced an early flyer for the concert.
Mo looked from him to Victoria. ―Wait a minute,‖ she said. ―Isn‘t J.J. Johnson your...‖ She didn‘t
finish the sentence.
Victoria swallowed. ―I made a mistake,‖ she said. ―It wouldn‘t be the first time.‖
―All right. But the concert‘s still off. Father Follett won‘t allow it in his church.‖
―That‘s why we‘re here, ma‘am,‖ Sheehan said. ―We believe that the date of the concert may be
significant to Mr. Johnson. For this reason we‘d like to ask you to hold the concert elsewhere.‖
―Where?‖
―I‘m thinking about here,‖ he said. ―I‘ve been looking around, and it looks like the right kind of
place for… for what your guy may have in mind.‖
―I don‘t know what you‘re talking about,‖ Mo said. She turned angrily toward Victoria. ―Look, is
this something you and boyfriend cooked up? What do those Bible thumpers have against us, anyway?
Why‘d you even sell me this property if –‖
―This isn‘t a trick, or a joke, or whatever you may be thinking,‖ Sheehan said, ―and I don‘t
represent the interests of any church. If you don‘t trust the I.D. I‘ve shown you, you can call any branch of
the FBI and have them verify my status.‖ He took out the card again. ―This is my I.D. number. Take a
picture of me if you like and mail it to the Bureau.‖
Mo sat back. ―I‘ll do that later,‖ she said. She felt suddenly cold, despite the heat from the fire.
―So you think J.J.‘s going to take some terrorist action against the people who live here, and you want us to
hold ourselves out as bait.‖
―If you agree, Mrs. Owens, we‘ll do everything in our power to keep you an the others safe.‖ He
paused for a moment. ―To tell you the truth, I don‘t think it‘s going to be any big deal. He might try to
disrupt the concert, or maybe just distribute some literature pushing his point of view. The thing is, if we
can catch him taking some action based on bias of some kind, we‘ll be able to take him in for questioning
about a more significant action in the past.‖
―The fire at the Metropolitan Church,‖ Victoria said.
Mo shrugged. She hadn‘t heard about it.
―Arson,‖ Sheehan elaborated. ―We think it may have been what the media calls a hate crime.‖
―And that‘s what he‘s going to try here,‖ Mo said flatly.
―In the presence of the FBI,‖ Sheehan said. ―To be truthful, it may be a lot safer for you than if
you cancelled the concert and gave Johnson the latitude to choose when and where to come after you.‖
Mo swallowed. ―I‘d have to ask the others. I can‘t put everyone here in danger without their
knowledge.‖
―We really don‘t want word of this to get out,‖ Sheehan said with more than a little annoyance .
―We won‘t be able to do this twice.‖
Mo understood. ―What about your daughter?‖ she asked Victoria.
―Liz wants to sing,‖ Victoria said. ―It‘s always been important to her to sing in this thing, and I‘m
going to let her.‖
―Without telling her anything about… this?‖ She indicated the three of them at the table.
Victoria blanched. ―That‘s right.‖
―One agent will be assigned to watch the stage,‖ Sheehan went on. ―Keeping the high school kids
safe will be our first priority. ―If we see any danger at all, we‘ll take care of them first.‖
―I don‘t know,‖ Mo said miserably. If anyone – anyone at all – got hurt on her property, she would
be responsible. On the other hand, if J.J. weren‘t stopped now, he might come after them when the
authorities weren‘t looking.
―Let me show you something,‖ Sheehan said, rising. ―Can I look up something on your
computer?‖
In a minute he showed her the postings on the Stormfront forum, indicating the latest. ―This was
posted last night,‖ he said.
The Pagan Trailer Park must be destroyed, she read. Mo closed her eyes, feeling sick.
―Will you hold the concert here, then?‖ Sheehan asked. ―By the way, this can‘t become public
knowledge.‖
Mo turned to Victoria. ―What if you make up with him?‖
Victoria winced. ―I deserved that.‖
―Well, what if you do?‖
―Then I‘d be a hell of a mother, wouldn‘t I?‖ she said, exhibiting some of her old belligerence.
―Considering my daughter is the concert soloist.‖
Mo stared at her for a moment. ―All right,‖ she said finally. ―I won‘t tell anyone who doesn‘t need
to know. And we‘ll keep silent.‖
―I hope so,‖ Sheehan said sourly. He gave her his card. ―Call me.‖
(Extra Space)
Mo put her head in her hands. Who could be trusted?
Not Elsie, of course. She would tell anyone who‘d listen that the idiot who owned the trailer park
was planning a shootout between the FBI and the KKK. Andras was a danger, too. He wouldn‘t plan to tell
anyone, but his brainlessness could betray him. And all Cynthia needed was to get angry, and her mouth
would be triggered. Richard was fine, as long as he wasn‘t drinking. Henya might feel compelled to tell
Father Gordon, who would naturally be concerned if the concert were held despite a known threat. Jazzy
didn‘t talk much, but then again, she didn‘t care about any of them. She might blab just to see what would
happen.
And Charlie… Oh, my god, Mo thought. Naomi and her constant quest for a story that would
make her a star had gotten them all into this mess in the first place.
She lay her head on the table. It was useless. They were all good, well-meaning people, but they
were fallible. Weak, compulsive, foolish, uniformed, cowardly… The truth was, not one of them was
capable of handing the situation the FBI was suggesting.
Yet, she thought, they were the ones who would be in danger. They were all there was.
(Extra Space)
―The man from the FBI didn‘t want you to know about it, but you have that right,‖ Mo said.
―Damn straight!‖ Andras shouted, thumping the table. ―We‘re taking them bastards down!‖
Mo cringed inwardly. ―The thing we‘ve got to remember is, if J.J. and his cronies get word that
the FBI is after them, they‘ll walk away.‖
―And come back when no one‘s looking,‖ Henya said.
Everyone was quiet.
―Yeah, it‘s serious,‖ Bebe said. ―That guy wants to hurt us.‖
―A lot of people want to hurt us,‖ Cynthia agreed with a sniff of self-pity.
Elsie pretended to spit. ―Whiner.‖
―Wake up, Elsie!‖ Cynthia screeched. ―Do you think you‘re so different from us?‖
―I‘m no homo,‖ Elsie said.
―You‘re old and poor. Half the jokes on TV are about you.‖
―And the other half are about us,‖ Ned said to Bebe.
―There are a lot of redneck jokes, too,‖ Jazzy added, surprisingly.
―They don‘t make jokes about African Americans anymore,‖ Henya said. ―At least not in polite
company. But they still don‘t invite us to their houses,‖ she added with a smile.
―You don‘t deserve that,‖ Katherine said.
Richard looked up. ―And you do?‖
Katherine blushed. ―No, I didn‘t mean —‖
―Yes, you did. You‘re saying that it‘s evil to hate people because of the color of their skin, but if
you‘ve done something somebody says is morally wrong, even if you haven‘t hurt anyone, then it‘s okay if
you get strung up by your thumbs. Is that it?‖
―Richard, you of all people –‖
―That‘s what I‘m talking about, Katherine. If it‘s okay with me that you love Forrest, why should
it make any difference to them?‖ He gestured in the direction of the church next door.
―That‘s not the point.‖
―It is the point,‖ Ned said. He looked around the room. ―All my life I‘ve let people beat up on me.
Because they could. Because they were stronger than I was. At least that‘s what I told myself. But the real
reason was because somewhere inside me, I felt that I deserved to be beaten up. I was a perv, a freak, a fag
– whatever the current term was – and so it was okay to hurt me.
―Oh, I‘d complain about it later. I‘d work up a lot of self-righteous anger. But I still let them get
away with it. Not just the beatings –most people don‘t really go that far – but the other things, the rude
remarks, the jokes, the accidental pushes and shoves, the caricatures about what they think I am. They‘re all
little things that don‘t count, but they grow. And they keep growing until finally they turn into people like
J.J.‖
He took a deep breath. ―I‘m ready for that to stop.‖
―You‘re not going to stop anybody from calling you a queer,‖ Elsie said, laughing.
―Maybe not,‖ Ned said. ―But I‘m sure as hell going to stop them from kicking me out of my home
for being one.‖
―They‘re not going to kick me out either,‖ Andras said with passion. ―Even though I‘m not a fag.‖
Charlie stood up. ―I‘ll be in charge of the musicians,‖ he said. ―I‘ll line up some guys to help…‖
―No,‖ Mo said. ―You can‘t tell anyone else. Besides, the FBI will be watching the stage.‖
―In that case, maybe Charlie better have his guys there,‖ Cynthia said cynically.
―Cyn and I will look after the kids in glee Club,‖ Bebe said.
―I‘ll make sure the guys from the bar come,‖ Ned said.
―A lot of good they‘re going to be,‖ Andras said. ―What are they going to do, throw fruit?‖
―You see? That‘s what I was –‖
―Save it,‖ Bebe said. ―Let them call us names. But we‘re not going to let them force us to leave.‖
Jazzy looked at her nails. ―You‘re going to leave anyway,‖ she said.
―Not until I‘m goddamned good and ready.‖
―Me neither,‖ Andras said. ―I got a baseball bat.‖
―Well, I‘ll be conducting,‖ Forrest said drily. ―Please try not to fight around the podium.‖
―The guys from General Grant‘s will look after you,‖ Ned said. He turned toward Andras. ―We‘ll
bring our own fruit.‖
―I‘ll work out a parking plan so that people can leave in a hurry if they have to‖ Richard said.
There was a lot more talk. Finally Mo stood up. ―I guess it‘s settled, then,‖ she said. ―We stay. If
we have to, we‘ll fight. But most of all, we‘ll keep the kids safe.‖
―And keep our mouths shut,‖ Elsie said.
―Fuckin‘ A.‖ Andras thrust his hand above the center of the table. Ned placed his hand over
Andras‘. Bebe joined them, followed by Cynthia, Jazzy, Katherine, Forrest, Henya Richard, Elsie, Charlie,
and Mo, who put in two hands. ―Victoria‘s with us, too,‖ she said.
Chapter Sixty
Mo
The stage, on the far end of the park away from the trailers, seemed to have gone up overnight,
although I knew that everyone at Elysian Fields had been working nearly full time on preparations for the
concert.
Ned, Cynthia, and Andras had reconfigured the stage from the remains of the SOTA fashion show.
Richard designed a sound-amplifying backboard using strips of metal from a discarded trailer. Charlie
borrowed a portable generator to set up electricity for lights and sound, a phenomenally difficult procedure
considering that Forrest had replaced the organ part with an electronic keyboard and a choir of electric
guitars. The rest of us hammered, sawed, painted, strung lights, and posted flyers.
I began setting up chairs in the afternoon, silently, like the others, each of us intent on our specific
tasks, trying not to think about what may happen later. Across the road, through the sparse collection of
trees that separated Elysian Fields from the Church of the Divine Redeemer, I could see the newly erected
white cross the church‘s parishioners had put up while my trailer people were building the stage. The cross
stood at least 15 feet tall and faced my property directly -- a reminder, I suppose, of our sinfulness.
Why had it had to come to this? The conflict had never been between the residents of Elysian
Fields and Christianity. People like Henya and Elsie were avid churchgoers whose religion stood at the
center of their lives. None of them were any more pagan than Father Gordon.
No, the cross had been used, as it had been throughout history, as a blind for a far more ancient
impulse: Not good against evil, not God against the devil, but us against them. It was Home and Visitors,
My Tribe and Yours, My Way and the Highway, Same and Other.
When Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, they were sent to a place east of Eden, to dwell
among the other people – people who presumably had gone unnoticed by God when He was fashioning
whom He believed to be the first human beings.
Perhaps I and my tribe of trailer park misfits were descendents of those others, the ones who did
not count as human beings and were therefore acceptable as targets. Jews, gypsies, peasants, beggars,
lepers, the insane, the fat, the stupid, the sick, the old, the unmarried, Arabs, Asians, merchants, gamblers,
alcoholics, drug addicts, women, children, blacks, homosexuals, scholars, strangers, foreigners, pagans,
Hindus, Christians… Didn‘t every one of us become ―others‖ as soon as we left our own little anthills?
Was the secret, then, never to leave? Never to change, grow, learn, evolve, create? And even then,
even if we were to give up everything we might become in order to give perfect obedience to the acceptable
norm, would there not be something, something shameful and hidden, a mole, perhaps, or an extra toe, the
longing for a forbidden touch, the call of a strange god, something , sometime, to brand us as other?
I wiped the tears from my face. I had been doing that a lot lately. Uncontrollable, unwarranted
tears. A sign of depression.
Well, why not? I thought. Didn‘t I have a damn good reason – and more than one, now that we‘re
on the subject – to be depressed? Who the hell ever said that life had to be fun? Or even worth living, I
thought in my secret mind, the one I tried not to look at, ever, the one whose truths were too terrible to
speak.
―Mo.‖
I looked up, startled. ―Charlie,‖ I said with relief, happy for that moment not to be alone. I put my
arms around him. He was warm and comfortable and strong.
―How goes it, lady?‖
―I‘m okay,‖ I said. ―A little nervous.‖
―No shit. It‘ll be fine, though. We can take care of ourselves.‖
―I know.‖ I looked up at him, his honest, open face, his clear eyes. ―Is everything all right with
you?‖
He shrugged. ―It‘s Naomi,‖ he said. ―She‘ll be here.‖
―You haven‘t told her anything, have you?‖
―Oh, no, nothing like that.‖ He grinned. ―Are you kidding? She‘d throw us all under the bus for a
story.‖
I felt a flood of relief. ―Then what is it?‖
He shrugged. ―I don‘t think it‘s going to work out between us,‖ he said. ―Naomi and me.‖
―Because?‖
He looked uncomfortable. ―Because of what we were just saying. She‘s Lois Lane.‖ He grinned.
―Only I‘m not Superman.‖
I took his hand. ―Do you have to be?‖
―Yeah,‖ he answered dispiritedly. ―For her, I would.‖ A moment passed. ―I bought a house,‖ he
said. ―With my mom. It‘s got a commercial kitchen. Bought it from a baker.‖
―A new life,‖ I said, happy for him.
―It‘s not the fast lane.‖
―The fast lane? In Beltsville?‖
―I know. I always used to think I‘d get out of here, go on the road with a hot band, you know.
Rock ‗n‘ roll. But I never made it. Not even partway. But the thing is, I don‘t think I even really wanted
that, anyway. It was just a fantasy. I like cooking.‖ He grinned. ―Not as much as I like playing the guitar,
but hey, I can do that, too. I‘m in the guitar choir, you know.‖
―I can‘t wait to hear you.‖
He held me tightly against him. ―I wish…‖
What do you wish? I thought. That I were younger? Me, too. ―Shh,‖ I said. ―No point.‖
―Okay.‖
It was just the way of things.
―Forrest‘s using one of my poems for part of the oratorio.‖
I pulled away from him. ―One of… Oh, Charlie. The poems that I refused to read?‖
He looked down, blushing.
―I‘m so sorry.‖
He shrugged. ―No big deal.‖ Then he kissed the top of my head. ―Goodbye, Mo. Just in case. I
mean, you never know.‖
I squeezed his hand. ―You never know.‖ He walked away, wiggling his fingers in a little wave.
―Goodbye, Charlie,‖ I said.
(Extra Space)
At the Church of the Divine Redeemer, the sanctuary was stripped of chairs to accommodate all
the extra people J.J. had rounded up to attend the protest.
There was an air of expectancy in the room. The church members had never before been called
upon to participate in something so contemporary as a protest. And at a concert, no less! Many of the
participants, dressed in their best clothes, had never been to a concert before.
―If they decide to sing about the devil, I‘m just going to have to find a way to block my ears,‖ a
woman said excitedly.
―We‘ll sing right back at them,‖ another offered with a decisive nod of her head. ―Praise songs.
Rock of Ages.‖
―Or some real Christmas songs, like Away in a Manger.‖
―Maybe we ought to practice.‖
―No crib for a bed…‖ an elderly soprano warbled. Others quickly joined in.
The little Lord Jesus
Lay down His sweet head
―You two know what to do?‖ J.J. addressed two men with gunnysacks folded under their arms.
One was the snake handler who had retrieved the unfortunate rattler after Victoria Tanner stomped on its
head.
They both nodded.
―Wait till everyone leaves,‖ J.J. said. ―I want you to be the last.‖
He handed shovels to two others. There were no questions; J.J. had organized every aspect of the
operation perfectly, long in advance.
―Mr. Johnson?‖ A good-looking man in his early thirties with curly dark hair and arms like a body
builder held out his hand. ―Quint Adams.‖
J.J. covered a little gasp of surprise. Quint Adams! From his years of correspondence with
Stormfront, he had slowly gotten to know a little of the organization‘s infrastructure. Quint Adams was, if
not a big wheel with Stormfront, nevertheless a wheel, and nobody to sneeze at.
Stormfront was slow to accept recruits. A candidate like J.J. had to provide years of information
about himself, information that might well prove to be incriminating in the wrong hands, while receiving
nothing from the Stormfront inner circle until they were good and ready to extend their trust.
Once they did, though, J.J. had slowly gained access to more and more men with the same
opinions and goals that he had. Step by step, he was growing a family. And like a family, Stormfront was
extending a helping hand to him in the living, breathing form of Quint Adams.
―Glad to meet you, Quint,‖ J.J. said. ―I sure do appreciate you taking the time to help these good
folks stand up for what‘s right.‖
―My pleasure,‖ Quint said.
At dusk they lined up outside the church in a prearranged order. The women, atwitter with a show
of lace-edged handkerchiefs, followed by the men of the church, dour, with prayers on their lips. Behind
them stood men whom J.J. had called on as soldiers: Some were with the KKK. Others – younger, mostly,
their heads shaved – were part of splinter organizations with names like White America and Christian
Identity. Some had even come from other churches to demonstrate that the gates of Heaven were open to all
who were God-fearing, although these were looked upon with some suspicion by the majority of the
congregants. In the middle of them, well hidden, was Henry May, Forrest McCormick‘s attacker.
Leading them all was J.J. Johnson himself, who walked up to the heavy white cross, so new that it
still smelled of wood and paint and the chemical coating that had made it so shiny, and prayed over it for a
moment. He invoked the name of Reverend Willet, whose health had prevented him from joining his flock
as they embarked on their crusade of righteousness, amen.
Muscles straining beneath his clean white polo shirt, J.J. hoisted the heavy cross onto his back and
began the long march to the pagan outpost. He stumbled on his journey. His sweat fell in droplets onto the
ground, yet he accepted no help. The women wept, so reminded were they of the final steps of the Savior
on His way to Golgotha.
At last he stopped, near the shrine to the Goddess and its hideous accompanying monolith. J.J.
nodded once, and the two men with shovels began to dig. Within minutes, the cross was lifted off J.J.s
shoulders and placed upright into the prepared hole, where its shadow fell upon the ungodly installation
like the fingers of the Almighty.
―It is finished,‖ J.J. said, standing back to admire the new addition. Then he burst into a chorus of
―Onward Christian Soldiers‖ that was taken up by the rest of the entourage as they walked toward the
concert area.
Pulling up the rear were the two men with gunnysacks, who walked well behind the rest of the
group. They skirted the edge of the property separately as they neared the concert venue, one to each side,
where they melted into the scenery and milled among the other visitors while they spoke softly to the
legless creatures inside the sacks, gentling them, keeping them still.
Mo watched them come, the women hesitant and frightened, looking for seats at the rear, the men
swaggering, walking into formation in a semicircle beyond the last row of seats, their arms crossed
defiantly over their chests.
―Don‘t worry about it,‖ Henya said beside her. ―They aren‘t the only ones here.‖
―Just about,‖ Mo said dispiritedly, taking in the sea of empty chairs she had rented.
―Beltsville‘s a small town,‖ Henya said. ―People talk.‖
The question was, were they talking about the wickedness of the Pagan Trailer Park, or the fact
that the FBI was counting on a terrorist act occurring during the concert?
Henya leaned in close and whispered I her ear, ―If they knew what was going on, the place would
be packed, believe me. It‘s better that they stay away.‖
Mo nodded. A few people had shown up, apparently in good faith: The Folletts, despite the earlier
threat, the parents and families of he musicians and singers, Bunny Oglethorpe and her husband, Dr. Patel,
some teachers from Liberty, a number of parishioners from St. Peter‘s, and Naomi, who was walking
around taking pictures. Toward the front, looking neither right nor left, sat Victoria Tanner.
(Extra Space)
Forrest called his oratorio The Gift. It began with the beautiful strains of Liz‘s solo voice ringing
through the park like the clarion call of an angel. Then the orchestra came in, flutes and violins followed by
reeds and organ and, after a time, a flourish of brass. Then came the full choir, majestic and compelling, the
collective voice of humankind. Finally, just as the guitar choir was about to enter with its vibrant, powerful
chords, a woman screamed.
―Snake!‖
Instantly the spectators were on their feet, panicking, knocking over chairs, running in every
direction.
―Come with me,‖ J.J. said to Clint Adams, jerking his head away from the scene unfolding before
them. He made small motions to the right and left. Two others broke away from the group and stole away.
One of them was the man who had held Liz Petrovsky at the front of the church during J.J.‘s sermon. The
other was Henry May. He was grinning, expectant, his knife once again in his hand.
Clint looked back at the crowd. The men with the gunnysacks were gone, and dim, low shapes
slithered among the now-empty seats as people fled toward their cars, children in their parents‘ arms as all
around them rose a din of shrieking.
Then the lights went out and the whole area was plunged into darkness and a lost, collective
scream.
―It‘s okay,‖ J.J. said. He winked, although in the sudden darkness, Quint could not appreciate his
associate‘s enthusiasm. ―I knew this would happen. All part of the plan.‖
While the would-be audience scrambled for their cars, J.J., Quint, and the two others loped away
from the crowd toward the most visible object in the field, the white cross brought by the church
procession. In contrast to the raucous horror of the concert area, it was nearly silent there, by the cross. The
only sounds were the wind blowing off the lake and, in what seemed like the far distance, the tinny, almost
artificial sounds of people shouting.
J.J. was elated, perspiring and breathing hard from the run. Clint looked at him, puzzled, until J.J.
produced a Zippo lighter. The flame illuminated their four faces. ―I‘ll let you do the honors,‖ he said,
handing the Zippo to Clint.
Clint hesitated.
―Go ahead,‖ J.J. prodded. ―It‘s been soaking in accelerant for three days. It‘ll go up like a torch.‖
With a little laugh, he gave Clint‘s shoulder a push, then vanished into the night with the others.
Clint looked back once more. They were alone out there, he with the cross, J.J. somewhere out of
sight, the three others looming somewhere, watching. No authorities, no spectators. Taking a deep breath,
he fired up the lighter and held it against the base of the cross.
The flames circled it, warm and low, blue at the tips, then crawled up the shaft, blossoming into
heat and light, making its way over the backside of the crosspiece, and finally igniting the top.
And so it was complete: A burning cross.
(Extra Space)
Following his evacuation plan, Richard directed traffic out of the park. Bebe and Cynthia kept the
performers on the stage, patrolling the proscenium to make sure none of the snakes made their way to the
teenage singers. Henya, who had brought a flashlight, ran through the crowd, helping the elderly to the
parking lot and making sure no one got trampled. While Charlie struggled to get the electricity working
again, Naomi ran with the stampeding crowd, her camera phone raised high, pursuing the biggest story of
her career.
Mo and Ned were directing the stragglers out of the park. ―Snakes,‖ Mo said. ―We should have
known.‖
―How could we have known that?‖ Ned snapped. ―What normal person sets snakes loose on a
crowd of people?‖
―His own people, at that,‖ Mo said.
―They guy‘s a nut. I swear if he were standing in front of me right now –‖
―Oh, my God,‖ Mo said.
―What is it?‖
She pointed toward the lake. On the hill, near Mo‘s cabin and the trailers, stood a flaming cross.
―Jesus Christ,‖ Ned said, and began to run toward it. Mo was already on her way.
(Extra Space)
J.J. and the three others congregated at the bush where he had stashed the crate long before dawn.
It was packed with root beer bottles taken from the trash after the Wednesday night prayer meeting. Each
bottle was filled with gasoline and a rag fuse to make what was called a ―Molotov cocktail‖ in the literature
J.J. received from Stormfront, along with instructions on how to make them.
He took them out now, carefully, and handed them one by one to the two other men. Then he ran
the short distance to one of the trailers before lighting the fuse. As soon as it raged to life, he tossed it
beneath the trailer and then ran out of the way.
The trailer went up like a rocket, one whole side whirling end over end in the light of the burning
cross. Two others exploded in quick succession. Something in the interior of one of them sparked and
sputtered as it burst into flame. In the distance, he could hear Henry May cackling. That canon’s too loose
to keep on the team, J.J. thought. The fires were already spreading. Those tin shacks should have been
condemned long ago.
The owner‘s cabin was some distance away. J.J. realized, too late, that he should have arranged for
one of his soldiers to destroy it. He ran back to the stash, lit a fuse, and sprinted toward the building. The
rag in the bottle sizzled. As he ran, the liquid sloshed perilously. It’s not going to make it that far, a voice
inside him said, and he knew that voice was right. He turned on his heel near the firepit, where one of the
trailers was covered with what looked like ceramic pots, and threw out the bottle with a whoop of triumph.
―And my wrath shall be mighty!‖ J.J. shouted as the trailer exploded, sending shards of terra cotta
shooting everywhere.
He had never experienced anything more thrilling in his life than watching those trailers explode
into nothingness. Not even when the faggot church had caught fire and the windows had blown out as if the
breath of God were behind them had J.J. felt such intense satisfaction. He was a holy warrior. He was
God‘s instrument. His body was carrying out the work of the angels, and the Creator, he knew, knew, was
well pleased.
He was on the ground when the trailer with the pots blew, prepared for shrapnel, but some of the
exploding debris got him anyway. One piece lodged in his right forearm, painful but in no way dangerous.
Then, in rapid succession, another shard shot into his belly while a third entered his neck. J.J.‘s head
snapped backward with the last blow. Blood gurgled in his throat.
Oh, Jesus, don’t take me now, he prayed. Not when your vengeance is so sweet in my mouth.
Then he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head, and he lost consciousness.
(Extra Space)
―Get an ambulance,‖ Quint Adams said into a cell phone. ―This guy‘s bleeding out. And there‘s
fire here, too.‖
―I noticed,‖ Tom Sheehan said. ―I‘m right behind you. You‘re clear, by the way. The two guys
with you are in another sector.‖
―Probably long gone, then. I‘m going to get out of here.‖
―Ten four.‖ Sheehan signaled to his men, but by the time they arrived at the burning trailers, there
was no trace of the arsonists.
Chapter Sixty One
Ensemble
Mo had nearly reached her cabin when she saw the first explosion. It lit up the night like a giant
blossom of flame. She hesitated, stumbling. How could this be? she anguished. How could anyone…
In the distance, a collective shriek went up from the parking lot, where most of the people were
gathered. Only the church people were on foot, headed back across the woods.
When they saw the trailer burst into flames, they all stopped in their tracks, these women dressed
in their Sunday best, the men uncomfortable in stiff shirts and jackets, and turned instantly to run toward
the fire.
One of the women stopped short. J.J. Johnson was lying on the ground, just coming to. His wrists
were handcuffed in front of him.
―Preacher Johnson!‖ the woman exclaimed. A few others collected around.
―It‘s the young Reverend,‖ another woman said.
―What are you doing to him?‖ the first woman demanded of agent Sheehan.
―He‘s under arrest, ma‘am,‖ Sheehan said as a multitude of sirens approached. ―Please stand
clear.‖
―The righteous shall prevail,‖ J.J. announced quaveringly.
The woman knelt beside him. ―Oh, Reverend Johnson, is there anything I can do?‖ she asked.
―Call Carlton Willett,‖ he said. ―Call…‖ He looked around. ―Who are you?‖ the asked Sheehan.
―Where the hell is Ray Lontz? He‘s the law here.‖
―You‘re under arrest for a federal crime, Mr. Johnson,‖ Sheehan said. He showed J.J. his I.D.
―You have the right to…‖
―What are those people doing?‖ J.J. shouted, pulling himself to his feet.
―They…They‘re putting out the fires,‖ the woman answered. ―Those trailers… They were on
fire.‖
J.J. emitted a sound like an injured moose. ―Don‘t you know who lives there, you stupid cow?‖ he
bellowed.
The woman backed away. ―People,‖ she said quietly, frowning in bewilderment. ―There‘s people
live there.‖
(Extra Space)
―Need buckets!‖ someone shouted.
―Alongside the cabin,‖ Mo said, leading the way. She opened her doors to them, handing out
every pot and bowl available while the church people filled them with water from the lake and poured their
small libations onto the burning trailers. One by one the residents, too numb with shock to react, joined
them, helping Ned to rig up three long garden hoses to a pump. By the time the fire truck, along with a
police cruiser and an ambulance, reached them, the flames were nearly out.
Seeing the vehicles, the church people left immediately, stacking their containers in neat piles.
Mo looked searchingly at Ned. ―What do you suppose that was?‖ she asked.
―Kindness,‖ he said. ―Some of them don‘t live in places much better than these trailers.‖
―But… but they hate us,‖ Mo said, astonished.
He gave a small chuckle. ―Well, maybe so, but they wouldn‘t stand by and watch someone‘s home
burn to the ground without lending a hand.‖ He surveyed the damage, his hands on his hips. ―It‘s just too
bad there was so little for them to do.‖
Mo coughed as the pall from the smoke shifted toward her. ―Kindness,‖ she repeated.
With the thick smoke and the lack of electricity, it was nearly pitch black outside. The only points
of light were the beam from Henya‘s dim flashlight bouncing over the wreckage of the trailers and, further
away, the cross that was still burning.
Victoria arrived just as Sheehan led J.J. to the ambulance.
At the sight of her, J.J. spat on the ground. ―Happy now, you old whore?‖
Mo put her arm around Victoria. Sheehan gave J.J. a shove. Victoria, for once, said nothing.
Bebe and Cynthia came running from the concert area, breathless. ―We saw the fire,‖ Bebe began.
She was interrupted by Cynthia‘s hysterical scream.
―It‘s gone!‖ Cynthia screeched. All of it, everything we had!‖
Jazzy put her arms around her. ―I know,‖ she said quietly. ―Ours, too. Everything.‖
―Everything,‖ Elsie repeated. ―All my things. My photos…‖
Cynthia put her arm across Elsie‘s shoulders and pulled her into the circle, where the women stood
swaying, their arms entwined around one another as they mourned together, the weight of their loss
overwhelming any differences they may have had.
―He didn‘t have to call me old,‖ Victoria muttered.
Sheehan nodded his thanks. Amid the wails and sobs, Victoria mouthed, ―Call me‖.
Mo poked her. ―For God‘s sake, Victoria.‖
Sudddenly Victoria‘s eyes grew wide. Ned rushed forward. ―Oh, Jesus,‖ he said.
―What?‖ Mo asked, panicking. ―What is it?‖
―Don‘t move.‖
The beam from Henya‘s flashlight traveled from the ruins of the trailers to the ground at Mo‘s
feet. ―Oh, God,‖ Bebe said.
Mo was surrounded by snakes, and they were crawling onto her.
(Extra Space)
In the distance, the fire fighters were spraying the cross. Its light flickered as the flames were
doused, but the accelerant on the wood kept it burning, illuminating in fits and starts the eerie, sinuous
movements of the serpents. Ned backed away slowly, signaling for the others to do the same. No one
spoke.
Unaware of what was happening, the ambulance driver pulled away, taking J.J. and the FBI agent
with it.
Katherine was the first of the women‘s circle to see it. She put a trembling hand to her mouth.
Henya‘s flashlight quivered and bobbed with her uneven breathing. Jazzy, her face sooty after helping to
put out the trailer fires, gasped when she saw them: Not one snake, but four, crawling up Mo‘s body with
slow certainty.
―Try not to panic,‖ Ned said softly. ―Snakes don‘t like the dark. They‘ll leave you alone in a
minute. Just hang on, Mo.‖
The police officers in the cruiser got out. ―Holy shit,‖ one of them whispered.
The fire on the cross was finally extinguished. Briefly the moon emerged from behind some
clouds, illuminating the grotesque scene. There were five snakes on Mo‘s body now, coiling around her
legs, her waist, her neck. Tears were crawling silently down her cheeks.
―Stop crying,‖ Ned ordered. ―Control your breathing if you can.‖
Mo‘s hands and buttocks were shaking visibly, but she swallowed and tried to will herself to keep
still.
One of the firefighters approached while the others replaced the hose. ―Nothing much –‖
The police officer held up his hand. ―Snake,‖ he said. ―It‘s on her.‖
―More than one,‖ the other officer said.
Mo cast her eyes about her. In the distance, on the stage, some of the musicians and singers were
standing in a tight knot well away from the proscenium. Moonlight illuminated them strangely,
sporadically, just as the shifting wind sometimes brought sounds from the stage to where Mo stood like a
statue, covered by vipers. She could hear the high schoolers talking. For them, the danger was past. They
had assumed the bored, jocular attitude of kids who were forced to wait for an adult to give the go-ahead.
Near Mo, though, it was silent. The moon weaved in and out of the clouds, in and out of the ranksmelling smoke from the doused fires.
Hold still, she told herself. She had never touched a snake before in her life. Their touch came as a
surprise. They were dry, almost … She searched for the word. Crispy, that was it. A crispy feeling. She had
always thought, if she thought about them at all, that they would be slimy, like worms.
Their bodies, caressing, intimate, warmed slowly against her skin.
Why? She thought, closing her eyes, clenching her jaw to keep from crying.
They are a gift, Mari Owens, came a voice inside her head. My gift, given to me long ages ago,
that I now pass on to you.
The snakes?
They can be good or bad, fearsome or welcome. Bringers of death, or bestowers of power.
Harbingers of blessings or evil. They are Fortune. They are Life, however brief or painful or inscrutable
that may be. At this moment, they are all you have, all you are.
How do I control them?
Control is an illusion, even for the Creator, for you who are called Goddess to us, Mari. You do
not have the power to change what is, because that is what must be.
Mo felt her heartbeat quicken. The trailers were not saved.
And my acolytes are dead.
Yet here we are, Mo thought. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the mud-smell of the serpents
against the choking smoke, giving the warmth of her body to their cool, dry, scale-coated muscles. These
were the repositories of Araiama‘s knowledge, the keepers of faith.
Just the way of things, I guess.
Ah, yes, Mari. The way of things.
Mo swallowed. ―All right,‖ she said aloud as she raised her arms. The snakes hanging from them
snapped into tight coils around her. Her hands trembled with the effort.
―I… am…‖ She took a deep breath. ―Snake Finder,‖ she croaked.
―What was that?‖ someone asked.
―Didn‘t catch it.‖
―Mo, were you –‖
―Leave her alone!‖
She began to walk slowly and deliberately toward the lake, her arms shaking under the weight of
the snakes that looped around them as if they were the branches of a tree.
―Look!‖ Everyone spoke in harsh whispers.
―Where‘s she going?‖
―Should we follow her?‖
Mo stood alone at the water‘s edge. ―I am Snake Finder,‖ she said again, remembering the words
she had written for Araiama: ―Snake Finder, come home to you, O Mother.‖
Then slowly, as she stepped into the icy water, the snakes began to uncurl. One dropped into the
water with a plop, its dark form slithering just beneath the surface as it streaked, lit by moonlight, between
some rocks.
―Come to set us free,‖ she whispered. ―Come to set us all free.‖
A cottonmouth that had settled around her neck loosened and made its way down her body. The
snakes around her legs sprang into the air, flying as they entered the shallow pool. One by one they
vanished, leaving behind the traces of their lives touching hers, so strangely, so unexpectedly.
(Extra Space)
When they were gone, she lowered her head. Her knees started to buckle. Ned waded into the
water to catch her before she fell. On the shore, Henya waited with a blanket.
―Jesus,‖ Bebe said, putting her arms around Mo. ―What the hell was that?‖
Mo shook her head, her tears flowing freely now.
―Sometimes snakes just cotton to a certain person,‖ Ned said, running his hand through his hair.
―They did with my great grandmother Doralee. There‘s just no explanation for it.‖
―But Mari…‖ Katherine was standing immobile, blinking with revulsion. ―Mo… Why Mo?‖ she
asked, her voice sounding as if it were disconnected to her body.
Forrest put his arms around her. ―It‘s all right. They‘re gone now,‖ he said.
―How do you know?‖ Katherine shrilled. ―There might still be dozens of them, crawling
around…‖
At that moment the lights suddenly came on. The musicians and singers still on the stage cheered,
their voices amplified through the sound system.
Mo and the others at the trailers blinked like moles coming into sunlight, finally seeing the true
measure of the devastation wreaked on their homes.
―There‘s nothing left,‖ Cynthia whispered, picking up a shard of pottery. ―None of our clothes,
even. Nothing.‖
―Nothing,‖ Katherine repeated numbly.
―My air conditioner,‖ Jazzy lamented.
Only Henya‘s Airstream and Ned‘s trailer, both well away from the others, remained intact.
Everything else between them and Mo‘s cabin had been blown to rubble.
―I don‘t suppose you had insurance on the trailers,‖ Ned said.
Mo shook her head. The trailers were meant to be hauled away. When she‘d bought the property,
she had thought of them as debris, eyesores, trash. And now, because of her, the people in her care had lost
everything they owned, and had no way to get any of it back.
―I didn‘t think they mattered,‖ she said. ―They were people‘s whole lives, and I didn‘t think they
meant anything.‖
―You couldn‘t have known,‖ Ned said. ―You couldn‘t have known any of it.‖
―But I… They were my…‖
―It was just something that happened, Mo,‖ Ned said. ―Stop thinking you‘re God.‖
―What are you saying?‖ she asked, irritated. She had just been through a bizarre encounter with
snakes crawling over every inch of her body. Criticism wasn‘t what she was looking for at the moment..
―I‘m saying it wasn‘t your fault, that‘s all. You don‘t have the power to make us all happy. And
anyone who thinks you do is an idiot.‖
Mo blinked. ―Even God can‘t do that,‖ she said. ―Make everybody happy.‖
―Hell, God can‘t even keep us from eating poisoned mushrooms. In fact, if there is some kind of
supernatural being up there looking after us, I‘d say he‘s doing a damned poor job.‖
Control is an illusion, even for the Creator, for you who are called Goddess to us, Mari. You do
not have the power to change what is, because that is what must be. ―What must be,‖ Mo said.
Ned shrugged, pulling on a pair of work gloves. ―I guess,‖ he said.
Just then, through the loudspeakers came a single note, soft and perfect. Liz was singing the
opening of the oratorio again, with no audience, singing into the darkest, longest night of the year.
―Fear not!‖ she sang, ―For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy…‖
Two violins echoed her, followed by a single flute and the entire clarinet section, whose members
had insisted on staying through the crisis. Then a lone trumpet entered.
―For behold…‖ the singers came in, perhaps half of them, their parents standing behind them on
the stage.
I bring you good tidings of great joy!
And the electric guitars –all ten of them, all played masterfully – entered with one resounding chord that
echoed to the farthest reaches of the valley.
Forrest, who had been weeping with Katherine over the loss of their trailer, looked up suddenly.
―They‘re doing the oratorio,‖ he said, breaking away to walk, then run, to the podium. Katherine rushed
after him to resume her place at the organ.
Bebe came up to Mo and put her arm around her. ―Feeling better, Little Egypt?‖ she asked.
―There‘s no insurance,‖ Mo said. ―All your things… there‘s nothing…‖
Bebe grinned. ―Good thing all my designs and patterns are at the bathing suit factory,‖ she said.
―Other than that, I had four pairs of jeans and a footbath.‖
―It‘s great that you can be so casual about it,‖ Cynthia screeched.
―Oh, drop it,‖ Bebe said. ―We were going to get rid of everything when we moved, anyway.‖
―Maybe you were!‖ The pitch of Cynthia‘s voice was rising along with the decibel level.
―For God‘s sake, what‘d we ever have, anyway?‖
―My pots, that‘s what! My pots!‖ She buried her face in her hands. ―They‘re all gone.‖
―Every cloud has a silver lining,‖ Bebe said beatifically.
Cynthia suppressed a scream of rage and scampered away.
―You know, you‘re right, though, Beebs?‖ Andras said. ―What‘d anyone really lose? We still got
each other, right?‖
―Oh, shut up,‖ Jazzy said.
―No, really, Jazz. What‘d we lose?‖
―My clothes, Swamp Thing.‖ Jazzy bulged her eyes. ―It took me years to put my closet together.‖
―Shoot, you don‘t need any of that,‖ Andras said. ―You‘d look good in a curtain, Jazzy.‖ He
grinned. ―Or nothing at all.‖
She pushed him away.
―Oh, yeah,‖ Andras remembered. ―My air conditioner. I lost that.‖
―I already said that,‖ Jazzy said.
―Well, it was mine, too. I paid a hundred and eighty bucks for it.‖
―Big fucking deal,‖ Jazzy said. ―It‘s the middle of winter.‖
―Still. It‘s the best thing I had. Thing-wise, I mean. ‖
Jazzy sighed. ―The best thing you had is just fine.‖
He teared up. ―You mean you,‖ he said.
―I mean that.‖ She crooked her head toward the monolith, capped by Andras‘ womanly clock,
standing next to the smoking, charred cross.
―Yeah!‖ Andras said with childlike wonder. ―If I kept it, it would be gone now. But I gave it away,
so it‘s here.‖
―Just like love,‖ Bebe said, batting her eyelashes.
―Huh?‖
―Never mind,‖ Jazzy said.
―But you really meant you, right? The best thing I have?‖
Jazzy sighed. ―Sure,‖ she said, putting her arm around his waist.
―We‘ll worry about all this crapola tomorrow, okay?‖
She nodded.
―Maybe we can go for pizza.‖
(Extra Space)
Bebe caught sight of Elsie, looking small in Henya‘s arms. ―Elsie‘s not as lucky as us,‖ she said.
―Oh, that‘s right,‖ Cynthia, who had returned to Bebe‘s side, muttered. ―We‘re so lucky.‖
―It‘s hard to throw away the past at her age. That‘s most of her life.‖
―It‘s hard at any age,‖ Cynthia grumbled.
―Yeah, well, maybe I‘m just speaking for myself, but I for one didn‘t think my life was all that
fricking great. I don‘t mind the prospect of getting another one.‖
―So why don‘t Elsie?‖ Andras asked, veering toward them.
―Excuse me?‖ Cynthia shrilled. ―Ever hear of a private conversation?‖
―What‘s so private about it? You weren‘t talking about sex or anything.‖
―It‘s all right, Andras,‖ Bebe said. ―I don‘t even remember what we were talking about.‖
―Elsie,‖ Andras said. ―Why can‘t she start a new life?‖
―Because she‘s old,‖ Jazzy said querulously.
―So?‖ Andras stopped in his tracks then, his eyes narrowed.
―What‘s the matter with him?‖ Bebe asked.
―He‘s thinking,‖ Jazzy said.
―Oh, yeah.‖ Cynthia nodded. ―I saw him do that once.‖
―I‘m thinking all right,‖ Andras proclaimed. ―I‘m thinking Elsie might be old, but she ain‘t dead.‖
―Einstein,‖ Jazzy muttered.
―Hey guys!‖ Naomi bounced out of the rubble, her camera flashing. ―Can I have a picture?‖
Jazzy gave her the finger.
―You‘re a ghoul,‖ you know that?‖ Cynthia crackled.
―Naomi looked blank, suddenly brought down from the high excitement of grabbing a major news
story as she looked into their faces.
―Did you see the snakes?‖ Andras asked.
Mo stepped in front of him, hoping to divert Naomi‘s attention. ―Take our picture,‖ she said,
smiling invitingly.
―What?‖ Cynthia scowled.
―Of all of us, together.‖ She looked at the others. ―For Elsie. This way she‘ll at least have one
photograph.‖
Naomi looked puzzled, but wanted to take advantage of the opportunity ―Okay, over there,‖ she
said, pointing toward the detritus that had once been their homes.
―Could you call Charlie?‖ Mo asked Cynthia.
―Why me?‖
―Because you have the loudest voice,‖ Bebe said.
Cynthia scowled. ―I‘ll get him,‖ she said, running off.
―You too, Ned.‖
―What?‖ Ned had been hanging back.
―In the picture.‖
―I don‘t feel right,‖ he said. ―My place wasn‘t touched by the fire.‖
―But you did more than anyone else to put it out.‖
―Including the fire department,‖ Andras noted.
―C‘mere, bro,‖ Bebe said, engulfing him with her powerful arms.
They gathered around Elsie, who had been clinging to Henya like a drowning woman to a life raft.
Naomi snapped her picture. ―Okay, I thought maybe you could be looking at what happened to your
things…‖
―No,‖ Mo said sharply. ―We have the rest of our lives to be sad, if that‘s what we choose to do.
But for now, for right now, we‘re going to commemorate being alive.‖
―And together,‖ Henya said.
―Fuckin‘ A,‖ Echoed Andras.
―Hold up!‖ Cynthia approached at a trot, with Charlie, Richard, Katherine, and Forrest close
behind.
―What is it?‖ Forrest asked. ―I need to conduct.‖
Katherine laughed. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. ―I love you,‖ she said.
Forrest blushed. ―Your hair‘s a mess,‘ he said, smiling.
Katherine looked momentarily stricken, then relaxed. ―My comb burned up,‖ she said with a
shrug.
―I‘m glad,‖ Forrest said.
Charlie put his arm around Elsie. ―Hey, Mom, you okay?‖
Elsie squeezed he eyes shut. ―My photos,‖ she whispered. ―My memories.‖
―Nothing can burn up your memories, Mama,‖ Charlie said softly. ―They‘re up here.‖ He tapped
her forehead.
―But my pictures… pictures of when you were a little boy riding your scooter…‖ She wiped her
eyes.
―Oh, Ma.‖ He crushed her against his chest. ―What would you rather have, some old pictures of a
kid on a scooter, or the real life version, twice as big and ten times as handsome?‖ He hugged her more
tightly. ―And living with you?‖
―Oh, stop, you.‖
―No, tell me.‖
She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. ―Well, of course,‖ she said.
―Say it.‖
She sighed.
―Say it.‖
―All right. You, Charlie Nolan, was that loud enough for you?‖ Her eyes spilled over. ―I‘d rather
have you.‖
―Rather have me than what?‖
―Oh…‖
―Go on. You‘d rather have me than...‖
―Than anything,‖ Elsie said.
―Well, you‘ve got me. We‘re business partners, aren‘t we?‖
Elsie‘s face broke into a grin. ―Yes. Yes, that‘s so.‖
―A new life.‖
―All right, Charlie. Enough is enough.‖
―See?‖ Andras said. ―I told you, she‘s old, but she‘s not dead.‖
Elsie glared at him.
―Shut up, Andras,‖ Charlie said.
―No, I mean it. That‘s what I was thinking about.‖
―You were thinking about how old I am?‖ Elsie snarled. ―You pot-bellied, bald-headed turd.‖
―I was thinking that it don‘t matter if you‘re young or old.‖
―Or black or white,‖ Charlie added cynically.
―Whatever. It‘s just that people think things are different, but they‘re not.‖
Charlie and Elsie both regarded him with pinched faces.
―You‘re not really safer just because you‘re old, even though you pay less for car insurance. And
you‘re not happier because you‘re young. Even though that‘s what it looks like on TV.‖
Elsie blinked. ―Your back feels a hell of a lot better when you‘re young.‖
―Yeah, but everybody‘s always pushing you around.‖ Andras beamed. ―Do you get it? It‘s like a
democracy. A democracy of shit. Shit gets on everybody, every day. And every day, there‘s more shit.‖
―Great,‖ Cynthia said. ―Are we going to take this picture, or what?‖
―It‘s like every day‘s a new day,‖ Andras said, pressing his point.
―Okay, okay,‖ Charlie said. ―Hey, Victoria! Get over here.‖
Everyone turned to look at her. For once, she had gotten lost in the crowd. ―Oh, you don‘t want
me in your picture,‖ Victoria said.
―No shit,‖ Cynthia muttered, but both Bebe and Mo overrode her with waves and admonitions.
―Right here, beside me,‖ Mo said.
―And hurry,‖ Forrest added. ―They‘re almost at the presto section.‖ He looked longingly at the
stage.
They gathered into a tight group in front of the smoldering trailers, posed and smiling as if they
were at a family reunion.
―That‘s not the picture I wanted,‖ Naomi complained. ―You all look happy.‖
―Just take the picture, Naomi,‖ Charlie said.
(Extra Space)
And so their likenesses were preserved, dirty, sweating, oily, tear-streaked, tired, tough, and,
against all logic, hopeful.
For though in time each of the figures in that photograph would feel by turns numb, angry,
grateful, spiteful, guilty, self-pitying, frightened, triumphant, special, ordinary, deeply spiritual, indifferent,
despondent, relieved, lucky, miserable, foolish, and exhausted, they would all remember that moment when
they stood together in the land of snakes, surrounded by the rubble of the lives they would have to leave
behind as a new day beckoned from beyond the darkness.
Chapter Sixty Two
Mo
Ixlata lay shivering beneath her blanket. She had remained beneath the shrine we had built,
and had not sought better shelter, even though it had snowed in my absence. Perhaps it was her innate
self-discipline that had kept her in that spot, or the advanced stage of her illness. She may have been in
too much pain to move.
―Drink this,‖ I said, placing a gourd filled with an infusion of herbs in her hands. Most of it
spilled out over her trembling fingers. It was hard for her to swallow. ―You will not have to wait much
longer.‖
I touched her face. ―But sing for me,‖ I said, smiling at her. The muscles of her face would not
move, but I saw a returned smile in her eyes, young and fresh as a summer’s day. ―Sing, Ixlata.‖
Deep in her throat came the sounds that were, in her mind and mine, a song. What she heard
behind those dimming eyes I do not know; but for me, it was the song that Povier sang, the song of his
childhood and the land he had left forever behind him. It was the paean to Mari, which my own people
sang as they lay down flowers and bread at the foot of her monument. It was what my tribe chanted as
we wandered off the face of the world into the unknown reaches, and the lullaby that went through the
mind of the garrison commander as he made love to me in the lagoon. It was what my acolytes sang, full
throated and punctuated with laughter, as they tilled the gardens of Mari’s temple. It was the chanty of
the rowers as they steered our warship out of slavery. It was the silent song of the serpent who
protected me in my basket as I lay sleeping, just born, with all the adventures of life ahead of me.
Ah, yes, a song. When everything has been said, that is what all these years have been.
A song.
Somewhere in its twisting, gorgeous melody I raised my arms to my Mother, to Mari, creator of
everything I have known, and called upon her once more, for one last favor.
She was not compelled to grant it, of course. As I have said many times, I was not deserving of
Her blessing. Perhaps She gave it to me because I had come to her with an open heart, or because
Ixlata was an innocent. Or perhaps Mari had no more power than I, and it happened only because it
was the way of things. But I thanked her all the same, because wherever it came from, the snake that
was to be the destiny of both Ixlata and myself did not come from me, any more than the death of my
children had come from me.
It came, small and eager, during Ixlata’s dying song. I pretended that it carried the memories of
that other snake, the one the midwife had found in my basket at the beginning of my life. And, who
knows, perhaps it did. Snakes are wise and mysterious creatures, and like the earth itself, they
remember what they cannot know firsthand. By accepting their instinct as truth, they become greater
than their lives.
―Snake Finder,‖ I said, lifting the creature as I lay down beside Ixlata on the snow-covered
blanket. Her eyes widened when I brought the snake between our faces, but her fear soon dissipated.
Those who are certain of impending death do not panic. If the snake were to kill her an hour before her
appointed time, what did it matter?
I took her hand in mine, to give her strength. ―Momo,‖ I whispered. ―Beloved.‖
And gently, almost sweetly, the snake touched the throbbing place on my neck with its daggers
and gave me the gift of its poison.
Ixlata gasped. I clasped her hand more tightly. ―For you,‖ I said.
The snake, Mari’s beloved messenger, wound around my neck and onto Ixlata’s. Through my
blurring vision I watched the color infuse into her face, saw her cheeks redden and a brown glow of
health replace the waxy sheen of her forehead. Her breath sweetened and grew steady; in time, she
raised her head, then her shoulders, until she was sitting up, frowning, confused, touching me with lively,
helpless hands.
―Momo!‖ she called.
―Beloved,‖ I said through parched lips that barely moved.
(Extra Space)
She is beautiful. Every emotion passes over her expressive face – astonishment, horror,
unbounded joy – all at once. She breathes deeply, feeling almost guilty for the pleasurable sensations
running through her body. She kneels on strong legs, bending over me. Her voice comes clearly now,
keening, as tears well in her compassionate dark eyes. She starts to lift me but stops, fearful of my
fragility. The flesh beneath my skin has withered, leaving me skeletal. My bones knob at the joints. My
spittle has dried.
Ah, yes, this has been my deepest desire: To be used up when I die, to have lived until every
drop of life has gone into the living.
Ixlata does not realize that the snake is still coiled around her neck, growing warmer as my
strength passes through it into her body.
―Sing,‖ I say again, and though I know she cannot hear me, she understands, for the snake, the
Mother, has brought Ixlata my life, my whole life, my thoughts and wonderments, my questions and
jealousies, my temperament, my magic.
And so she sings, strongly now, bravely, fiercely. She sings as she holds me in her secure arms,
tears of love running down her face into my white hair, while the snake uncoils, circling once around our
two bodies, now joined by the serpent as one, and then drops silently, its miracle accomplished, to
vanish into the night.
The last thing I know is the sound of Ixlata’s singing, and the touch of her, and the beating of
her powerful heart.
(Extra Space)
My book was done. I turned off my computer and walked outside.
Ned was painting the cross that I had asked to be left standing by the other markers. Why not, I
reasoned. The spot by the lake had not begun as a spiritual place, but had become one, seemingly, by
random chance. Perhaps in time someone would place a Star of David there, or an Islamic prayer rug, or a
Buddhist altar with incense burning. What did it matter to me? None of their gods spoke to me, in any case.
Ned nodded tersely, wiping moisture from his face with the back of his hand.
―Hi, Ned.‖ I had a childish urge to run up to him, shouting that I‘d finished my book. It always felt
like a moment of triumph to write those two words, The End.
They were the finish line at the end of an arduous race, during which the runner‘s soul had been
left somewhere along the road. They were the signal that the bubble in which I had lived for the better part
of a year was about to burst, leaving me once again in that prison-block room of cold cement.
As a writer, I have had no real life. Like feeder fish, the events of my time on earth have only
served to create similar events on paper. Similar, but different. Better, more interesting, reasonable, tidy.
Fiction is logical. Life is not. Things don‘t just happen in novels. There are always reasons,
presages, presentiments, foreshadows. There is always blame. Victims and predators are not
interchangeable. Villains are inevitably either punished or changed; victims are always sympathetic.
Those are the rules inside the bubble. Children do not die at the age of six without creating some
grand event that makes their tiny deaths worthwhile. Wives left by their husbands become plucky and
accomplished. They pull themselves together. They find True Love with handsome, sensitive men. They
make wise decisions.
And they are powerful. They do not have to forgive themselves for their powerlessness. They
never think that their victimizers, their villains, are also powerless.
Above all, fictional gods are not powerless.
That is why it hurts so much when the bubble bursts. It was why I wanted to shout my own praises
at the top of my voice:
Hello! I’m Mo!
―Got a minute?‖ Ned asked. He put down his paintbrush and pushed back the brim of his cap.
―Sure. What‘s up?‖
He made a face. Embarrassed, awkward. ―I just wondered if you have plans for this place.‖
―Like what?‖
―Like do you want to keep it?‖
I looked out over the expanse of blackened, grassless earth where the trailers had been. A team of
cleaners had come in with trucks and cranes to clear away the rubble.
Some things had been left surprisingly intact: Jazzy‘s yellow choli, though dirty, had been
otherwise unaffected by the explosion that had wrecked her living quarters. Cynthia‘s swim fins, both of
them. A tube of lip balm, owner unknown. A muffin tin.
Some things always survive.
The people they belonged to, though, were no longer present to claim them. Bebe and Cynthia had
moved to Atlanta, where their Internet business had expanded to include three different lines of clothing.
They had just signed a lease on a building that was to serve as both factory and the flagship store, to be
named, aptly, Bebe.
Richard and Henya took the Airstream to Yellowstone, where they encountered Katherine and
Forrest. During the two weeks the four of them spent together, Katherine and her husband began divorce
procedings.
Forrest bought Katherine an engagement ring at Kay‘s Jewelers for $199.99. She gave the ring she
had been wearing for the past 25 years – a 1.5 carat, WS1-rated brilliant-cut solitaire which she had chosen
herself, back to Richard, who offered it to Henya. Henya asked that it be made into a pendant, which she
wears over her favorite snowman-applique sweatshirt.
They are planning an extensive trip to China, and have turned over the Airstream to Charlotte and
Father Gordon Follett for safekeeping.
Andras and Jazzy Kodaly drove their truck to Badger Creek, Kentucky, where all past conflicts
between Jazzy and her family were healed through the diplomatic graces of Andras who, despite having
been reared in east L.A., seemed to fit right in with Jazzy‘s rural relations.
Elsie Nolan and her son Charlie opened their catering business, Chops, less than three weeks after
the aborted concert at Elysian Fields. In addition to providing what the Beltsville Sentinel called ―the best
food in the valley,‖ Chops serves as a booking agent for singers, musicians, and bands of all persuasions.
Speaking of music, Naomi‘s story attracted so much attention that when Forrest‘s oratorio was
rescheduled in St. Peter‘s on the Saturday after Christmas, it played to an SRO audience.
Naomi has received an offer from the newsroom of the Nashville Tennessean, the biggest
newspaper in the state, and also from Vanity Fair Magazine in New York.
Liz Petrovsky has an appointment to audition for Julliard in March. Katherine Davis, an alumna,
wrote a glowing letter of recommendation.
Victoria Tanner spearheaded a drive to collect money for the victims of what became known as
the Pagan Trailer Park bombing, concentrating her efforts on the members of the Society Of The Arts. At
the end of her campaign, she had garnered nearly $400,000 in contributions for the six people who had
been left homeless.
SOTA gave her a special plaque for her efforts.
She remains the #1 realtor in the county.
―So if you want to sell, I think I‘d be able to get financing.‖ This was Ned speaking. While I was
accounting for the movements of my contemporaries, he had been proposing a plan to buy Elysian Fields
from me.
―I think I‘d call it the Pagan Trailer Park,‖ he said, grinning.
―That‘ll make the church people nuts,‖ I said.
―Didn‘t I tell you? Ray Lontz retired. There‘s a new sheriff, and he doesn‘t like snake churches.‖
―So they‘re on the run now?‖
―Looks that way. For a while, anyhow.‖ He chuckled. ―Either you‘re a hammer or a nail,
understand what I‘m saying? And you never know when the balance is going to tip.‖
I smiled at him.
―Finish your book?‖
I nodded.
―Congratulations. What‘s next?‖
I winced. What was next? Maybe nothing. That was another thing about the bubble bursting:
There was always the possibility that I wouldn‘t be able to make another one.
―I‘ll consider your offer, Ned.‖
―‘Preciate it.‖ He went back to painting the cross.
It was very cold now, as cold as I‘d imagined Araiama‘s last winter. Inside the cabin I built a fire
and made some tea. I turned on the computer out of sheer loneliness, just so I could watch the flying cows
on my screen saver.
Ned wanted to buy the property, I thought.
―But where would I go?‖ I asked aloud.
I typed it. The flying cows vanished, replaced by my pitiful query.
Where would I go?
Then I stood up, shoving my chair away. ―How the hell would I know?‖ I muttered. This place
was where I was planning to retire. This was going to be home.
Oh, who was I kidding. This was never home. It was just the best place I could find to hide.
Home was the inside of the bubble. I‘d always known that. Home was where Araiama lived, with
her despair and uncertainty and loss. Home had disappeared for me as soon as I‘d written those final two
words at the end of the last page.
The End. Those words always meant so much more than just the end of a book, but there was no
way to explain how much more. Now the bubble had burst, and the meaningful, rainbow-colored world had
turned back into the windowless cement cell where I really lived.
Outside, it had begun to snow. Snow, rare so early, it covered the scorched earth where the trailers
had once stood with a clean white coating. A new day.
Ned had picked up his gear and gone home. The cross stood out subtly, white against the white
ground and the white lake beside it and the white sky above it.
Sing, Ixlata.
Okay, Araiama. I can do that for you.
Fear not, I warbled feebly. For behold…
I blinked. She was out there. Araiama, standing beneath the Torii arch. It was a replica of the
shrine under which she had died, her shine to her life, which she had passed on to another.
She had never had to expiate her guilt, I realized. There had been no guilt to punish. No victims,
no villains. There had been no need for the thousand powerless lives, including my own: It had all just been
the way of things.
What Araiama had felt was loneliness. A lifetime of loneliness. But for a short time, as her life
ebbed out of her and into Ixlata, that loneliness had abated. Just as mine had while I was inhabiting her.
My life flowed into Araiama, and hers into Ixlata. And maybe, somewhere outside the scope of
my consciousness, there is one – Mari Herself, perhaps – who is passing life into me, as well.
Creators all, using our skills to run from our loneliness.
Perhaps that is why the gods created us. Or why we created them.
(Extra Space)
I walked out to meet her. We stood together beneath the arch, in the shadow of the white cross.
―Thank you for telling our story,‖ Araiama said.
―I‘ve never been able to determine if I was writing about one life or two… my own, or yours,‖ I
said. ―Was it all metaphor? Did you ever even have a story, or was it my own, tweaked and tumbled until it
was no longer recognizable to me?‖
She shrugged. ―Madame Bovary, c‘est moi,‖ she said.
―There‘s only one set of footprints in the snow,‖ I said.
―As if that means anything.‖
Something fell at my feet. Overhead a bird called, complaining about its loss.
I bent over to see the object, picked it up examined it. It was a large green stone, emerald cut,
ringed in gold. Well, not gold. The metal was tarnished and the stone chipped. Costume jewelry, part of a
cheap earring or brooch. The bird‘s treasure.
For some reason I thought of Marie Antoinette. I‘d been reading about a place called French
Azilum somewhere in northern Pennsylvania, where French aristocrats had fled during Robespierre‘s Reign
of Terror. These spoiled, bewigged rich people who had never even dressed themselves actually lived out
in the wilderness in log cabins, waiting for things to cool down in Paris. Legend has it that provisions were
made for the Queen herself to live in the American wilderness, and that a part of the treasure of Versailles
was brought over and still exists somewhere in the pine forest.
Now wouldn‘t it be interesting, I thought, if one of Marie Antoinette‘s ladies-in-waiting from the
French court ended up living the life of a pioneer while keeping the Queen‘s treasure hidden from everyone
else in the colony? Maybe she‘s married to a creep who beats her, and she ends up running off to New
England practically as soon as she paddles her canoe into Penn‘s Woods? She might be thought of as a
witch, especially if she didn‘t bring any credentials with her. Okay, what if she really was a witch? What
if…
Araiama was gone. For good, I knew. I had lived her thousanth life for her. Our bond was broken.
I walked back through the snow, turning the chipped green stone in my fingers. I liked New
England, I thought. I wouldn‘t mind spending some time in witch country, with a brief stopover in French
Azilum. I could be ready to move by early spring. And meanwhile, I‘d write the outline, call my agent, talk
with my editor.
Yes, I‘d e-mail them both now. Flying cows, begone! The bubble was taking shape. I was going
home. This was…
I stopped breathing. For a moment I could do nothing but blink at my computer screen. The stone
I was carrying cut into my hand. I dropped it and it fell to the floor, stained with my blood.
On the screen were words I could not remember writing. I stared at them so long that the flying
cows returned, but they could not blot out what I had seen. Two words only. Two words:
Follow me.
The End.