13 1/2 (17 page)
Authors: Nevada Barr
A gout of black smoke burst from the hole Marshall had knocked in the wall of the girls’ room.
Gracie started to struggle, trying to get free of Polly’s arms. No!” Polly cried and held her more tightly as if Gracie, too, would run into the flames to be with Emma.
“Momma, let go. Look!”
At first Polly saw nothing; it was as if the fire had burned her retinas. Then from the smoke, a shape emerged.
“Momma, it’s them!” Gracie cried.
Black as a chimney sweep, Emma clinging to his neck, Marshall fell through the jagged gap in the side of the house, staggered to his feet, and fell a second time. Polly started to run to them. A fireman stopped her. She fought him until he shook her, yelling, “Ma’am, ma’am, it’s not safe.”
Two others ran to help Marshall. The first took Emma; the second lifted Marshall from the ground. Keeping a firm grip on Polly’s upper arm, her fireman got on his radio, asking for the status of the ambulance.
“Anybody else inside?” he asked Polly.
“No.”
“Just your husband and the kid?”
“My fiancé,” Polly said. Then with a vehemence that surprised her, she repeated, “He is my fiancé.”
19
The day Marsh met Polly, he had gone mad. Or gone somewhere. Danny had felt him leave—a sucking sensation that left a vacuum behind, a north wind snatching away a coat, the dentist drawing a living tooth. Now, three months later, he and Marsh were standing shoulder to shoulder in the Methodist church on St. Charles waiting for the bride. If Polly had been younger, it would have looked suspiciously like a shotgun affair.
The church’s steeple was missing, smashed by Katrina.
The guests had to enter under scaffolding.
And it was too fucking hot for a wedding.
Though the church was air-conditioned, Danny could see the beads of sweat at his brother’s hairline. Marsh was getting what he wanted, and it scared him.
It should scare him. It should scare everybody,
Danny thought.
Danny thought.
It was the fire.
Marsh appearing on scene in the nick of time and playing hero. Just as the fire was getting started, Marsh had phoned Polly and awakened her.
Such perfect timing.
Danny wondered if Marsh knew more about how the fire started than he should have.
Danny wondered if Marsh knew more about how the fire started than he should have.
Danny wasn’t worried about trouble with the law. Wind and flooding had damaged electrical wiring. Debris had piled under and around buildings. Police and fire departments were desperately understaffed. The loss of Polly’s house was one of many in the months following the storm.
Whispering at the far end of the room cut into his thoughts. He felt Marsh tense. They were not touching but a connection had been forged between them as kids; Danny knew his brother, felt his brother, as another part of himself. In more ways than most people realized they were the same man.
At the end of the room, the doors opened a few inches, giggles trickled out like water over rough stone, then they clicked closed again. The judge smiled. Marshall smiled back. There was an expectant murmur from the guests: partners from Marsh’s firm, Tulane people on Polly’s side. All seemed delighted these two were joining together in holy matrimony.
None of them could see Marsh—or Danny for that matter. All they saw was the shiny careers the two men had built around themselves. Polly was marrying a man no one but his brother could see.
The door reopened and Emma and Gracie, in identical high-waisted dresses of lavender, silk sashes a shade darker, and neat white Mary Janes, marched solemnly into the church. Danny winked at Emma, making her laugh. Her older sister quelled her with a look, and the two of them finished their dignified walk up the aisle, then retired, one to each side, like small pastel soldiers on parade.
Emma and Gracie were the only children Danny had ever bothered to get to know. To his surprise, he rather liked them. Before Emma and Gracie, he’d tended to think of children as much like animals, only stickier. Children were as unlike animals as they were unlike adult humans. There was a basic fiendishness in them, a primal distrust of the rules, that he found fascinating.
Fluttering like purple butterflies, Emma and Gracie settled.
Marshall’s attention remained fixed on the empty doorway. Danny amused himself by imagining his brother’s eyes
sproinging
from their sockets, his tongue rolling out in a long red carpet, and his still-beating heart zooming out on extension tongs in the tradition of moonstruck cartoon characters.
sproinging
from their sockets, his tongue rolling out in a long red carpet, and his still-beating heart zooming out on extension tongs in the tradition of moonstruck cartoon characters.
True love.
Hallmark made a fortune off the concept, as did more self-help authors than should ever see publication.
Hallmark made a fortune off the concept, as did more self-help authors than should ever see publication.
Danny had a sneaking suspicion it was the American version of bread and circuses. As long as the masses could be kept entertained pursuing the holy—and expensive—grail of True Love they didn’t tend to pay much attention to the systems that were bilking them.
A moment of dramatic tension, and then the recipient of Marshall’s lost heart stepped into the doorway: Polly Deschamps née Farmer, divorcée, mother of two. She wore a dress of pewter with daffodil piping, colors that set off her silver-blonde hair. The collar was mandarin and closed with a frog that matched the piping. The style was pure fifties, from the years when fashion worshipped Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.
Ms. Deschamps was nobody’s fool.
Seldom had Danny met anyone, man or woman, around whom he felt so unpleasantly transparent. There was a rich undercurrent in her eyes. He’d seen hints and shadows that suggested she took very little for granted. Not the person one would want to try to keep secrets from.
Polly turned and there was a tantalizing susurration. Few fabrics moved the way silk did.
Danny admired her taste. Polly did not conform to the trivial. She defined her own beauty. Earlier in her and Marsh’s courtship, Danny flirted briefly with the idea of winning her away from his brother. It wasn’t that he wanted Ms. Deschamps; he just wanted to remove her from his brother’s life before somebody got hurt. He had discarded the notion as soon as he realized it would be an either/or thing: he could either have Ms. Polly or he could have his brother. He chose Marsh. A no-brainer, as the vernacular would have it.
Polly stepped from the apse. With an innate—or, this being the Deep South, more likely a learned—sense of feminine theatricality, she twitched the full skirt clear of the door frame, looked up from beneath bangs that seemed windswept even in the still, warm air of the chapel, and smiled.
Danny felt the push under Marsh’s sternum, the ache across his shoulders, and knew the effort it cost his brother not to dash down the aisle and take her into his arms.
Polly knew it, too. Danny read it in her face. Then he felt it, felt
her,
inside Marsh, inside his brother. He tried to breathe, but his lungs wouldn’t fill with air. She was in Marsh’s head and spine, reaching out through his hands, looking out through his eyes. She was inside and all over him. All over them. And Marsh opened himself to it like he had never opened himself to anyone since he was a little boy.
her,
inside Marsh, inside his brother. He tried to breathe, but his lungs wouldn’t fill with air. She was in Marsh’s head and spine, reaching out through his hands, looking out through his eyes. She was inside and all over him. All over them. And Marsh opened himself to it like he had never opened himself to anyone since he was a little boy.
A white-hot point lacerated the back of Danny’s left eye. A central core of him shook. He was having a heart attack or a stroke. An aneurism, a fall of black, killing blood, trembling and pulsing, was breaking, bringing down eternal night behind his eyes.
“Danny? Danny? Hey man, you okay? Danny boy? Should we call a doctor or something?”
Marsh’s voice brought him back to the world, the room. It was over, done. The ceremony concluded, the bride kissed, and all the while Danny had been dying. He looked from Polly, to Emma and Gracie, to the pastor. They looked back, their faces ludicrous with concern.
“Brother, are you okay?” Marsh said. He laid his hand on Danny’s shoulder and Danny began to breathe again.
“Overcome is all,” he said. “I’ve missed having a sister.” He smiled and opened his arms to Polly.
MINNESOTA, 1975
Susan Smith. Killed two little kids. Drowning. See, this I can understand. People look at what she did and say, “Oh, my God, how could anyone be so cold and heartless?” I can see doing it. Who knows what she was thinking, but maybe it went like this. Here she is, this down-and-outer. Maybe not much money and no hope of getting any. She’s lonely all the time, and she’s got these two little kids. The kids are stressed out, crying all the time and fussing, and she’s worn out with taking care of them and herself. Then, here comes this boyfriend, and she sees maybe a way out. So she falls hard. He has only one problem with taking her out of her misery. He doesn’t want the kids. In my movie, she’s torn up by this, miserable, but she sees no life for her or the kids without this boyfriend. She doesn’t want them in a foster home with all that shit. So she thinks the only way to save herself and keep her boys from being passed around is to quietly end their little lives. Blaming a black man, I can’t go there. That’s pure cowardice. But the murders. Sure.
20
People changed.
People,
not Richard. Watching his reflection in the mirror as he knotted his tie perfectly, he knew that at twenty he was better looking than he had been at fourteen, or fifteen, or seventeen. His shoulders had broadened, and his chest filled out his suit coat nicely. The baby-fine, wavy, brown hair had grown darker, but not by much, and his jaw had firmed up. Richard paid only cursory attention to the physical changes. He could not remember a time he had not felt precisely like he did now, like himself.
People,
not Richard. Watching his reflection in the mirror as he knotted his tie perfectly, he knew that at twenty he was better looking than he had been at fourteen, or fifteen, or seventeen. His shoulders had broadened, and his chest filled out his suit coat nicely. The baby-fine, wavy, brown hair had grown darker, but not by much, and his jaw had firmed up. Richard paid only cursory attention to the physical changes. He could not remember a time he had not felt precisely like he did now, like himself.
Others were children, then adolescents, then adults. Their loves and hates traded places over the years, religion turned to cynicism, and cynicism to a desperate belief in God. Richard was as he had always been.
“Rich, honey, are you about ready? I’m so sorry to rush you . . . ” The words were accompanied by a head of tight gray curls sprayed stiffly in a coronet, peeking around the door frame.
“You’re not rushing me, Ellen,” Richard said, smiling for her. Ellen was Sara’s oldest friend. She’d cheerfully taken Sara’s shifts when his guardian had needed time off to work out the adoption and when she had come to watch him in debate tournaments. “I just want to look my best is all.”
“I know you do, honey. You take your time. We’ll tell the driver to wait.”
The head disappeared and he heard the clacking of her heels on the hardwood of the upstairs hallway. Sara had moved like a ghost in rubber-soled shoes. A lifetime of nursing left her with a bad back, a penchant for soft-soles, and a sense that she was constantly disturbing someone. Most of Sara’s friends were nurses. They would all be there today if they weren’t on shift at Mayo. A few doctors might come, but not many. Unless the nurses were young and beautiful or total screwups, the doctors didn’t much notice them.
Shrugging into his jacket, Richard looked around at what had once been his parents’ bedroom. Now it was his; he’d taken it against Sara’s wishes when they’d moved into the Raines house. That, too, had been against her wishes, and though it was twice the size of hers and immeasurably grander, she’d never been comfortable in it.
“Why don’t we sell it?” she’d say. “Buy something more modern?” He knew she wanted the move more for his sake than hers, at least in the first year they’d lived there.
When getting him to sell failed, she tried to change the house from within. “Why don’t we knock this wall out, make this room into one big space? It would be much lighter in winter.” Or, “Let’s get rid of all this dark old paneling and put up cheery wallpaper!”
Richard didn’t change anything. Dylan might need to come back here, might need to see it again, and he wanted the house to be as his brother had left it.
Richard turned back to the mirror. He looked like a million bucks, which, with the inheritance his parents had left, the little nest egg from Sara, and the gifts of cash from kind-hearted Minnesotans back when he was an injured child, was very close to what he was worth. Richard knew the value of money. Money bought time and influence; that it also bought cars, and books, and meals out was a side issue. People who focused on that didn’t keep their money long.
Dylan was looking like a good candidate for early parole. If it came through, Richard was determined to give the court no excuse not to release his brother into his custody. Money would do that for him. What made bellboys and chief justices alike was that they respected money, believed the rich were more deserving than the poor.
With luck, Dylan could be out in a couple of years.
Good old Phil.
Richard’s mouth tightened. He wished he could be the one to help his brother, but Phil Maris must have moved up the food chain since he’d been fired. He evidently had connections in high places now. Maybe he’d had some even then. The whole incident of the firing from Drummond had been swept under the rug. Nobody but Richard, Drummond’s warden, and maybe Dylan knew he’d gotten canned. The official story was that he got a better position in St. Cloud.
Richard dismissed Phil from his mind.
In the mirror, the image of his face softened, saddened. “Sara was good to me; we were good for each other. I shall miss her,” he whispered. Shrugging into his new coat, he took a last look in the glass. Satisfied, he headed downstairs to the waiting limousine.
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