Acts of God (9 page)

“I went to Vanderbilt,” Rivers Royals said. “My God, I can't believe this. We all went to Vandy. I was a cheerleader there from 1975 to 1978. Then I quit because I married my boyfriend and moved home to Jackson. I never have finished college although I'm on the board at Millsaps College. I have four children, all grown. One boy, three girls. The oldest girl doesn't like me. She's a hippie vegetarian in Colorado. She's a big girl. She blames that on me. She says I fed her too many potato chips and wasn't at home when she came home from school in the afternoons, which is not true, but she believes it.”

“Did you?” Mary Jane moved in closer. “Give her potato chips I mean?”

“No,” Rivers answered. “The maid gave them to her. I was being in plays at New Stage Theatre but they would never give me the good roles so I quit that and started painting. Then I threw pots. I had a kiln, then I just decided to do good works and help the museum and the ballet. Jackson has an internationally famous ballet competition every spring. Nureyev came the first year and came back the year before his death. It's really a famous ballet competition.”

“I should have guessed you'd been an actress,” I said. “I love actresses. I'm fascinated by ego and the will to power.”

“You want to talk about ungrateful children,” the man in the tweed suit said. “I could tell you stories all day about that. I have a son who isn't speaking to me right now because I won't give him money. I sent him to school and graduate school. Well, I made him take out loans for graduate school but his father-in-law paid the loans for him. And I have lent him money to live on every time he quits a job he doesn't like. But finally I had to cut him off so he quit talking to me. He thinks I owe him a living but I don't. It's my fault this situation exists because I should never have given him money to begin with, much less all the money I gave him, but at least I stopped doing it. Better late than never. I'm sorry he quit talking to me but in another way I don't care. If it takes bad feelings to cut apron strings so be it. I read once that friends are the way God makes up to people for their families. My name is James, James Monroe.”

“Tell me about your children,” I said. “Let's trash our families. That will pass the time, and make me feel better about being childless. I'll trash the drunks in my family. There're lots of them and they're legends.”

“The most interesting of my children is my oldest daughter,” Cynthia began. “She's four years old and she would eat chocolate pudding all day if I let her do it. She is so much like my mother-in-law it scares me. She looks like my husband and she acts like my mother-in-law. I love her but I have to try to civilize her. Then my mother-in-law comes over and gives her anything she wants and plots against me with her.”

“Plots against you?” Rivers asked.

“You wouldn't believe the things she tells her. She tells her not to pay attention to me and she favors her. I have a younger daughter but she isn't interested in her, only in Sophia, a name she conned me into naming her. I swear some days I think I have a cuckoo bird in my nest. That's what happens when you breed with people. You make some babies that are like you and some you don't recognize.”

We were interrupted by a British Airways attendant. He was accompanied by a uniformed guard. “We need to see Mrs. Royals a moment,” the agent said. “If you would come with us.”

“I'll go along,” Mary Jane said. “I'm Mrs. Royals's attorney.”

“And me,” I added. “I'm her friend.”

“Thank you,” Rivers said. “Thanks so much.”

The agent and guard seemed to have no problem with us going along so the three of us left the table and went into a room behind the information desk. It was a spacious office with computers and copiers and looked like an office in a brokerage firm.

“We need to unlock your bags,” the guard began. “Would you give us the combination? We'd hate to break the locks.”

“How did they get locked? I certainly didn't lock them. They were searched at the airport when I left Atlanta. Well, it probably happened when you threw them off the plane. The combination is four, four, four. I always use that. It's easy to remember. You have to clear it to the left first. Wait. I may have the instructions.” She began to rummage around in her bag.

“No need for that. Just wait here. This won't take long I'm sure.” The agent left and hurried out the door.

“Can I get you anything?” the attendant asked.

“No, thank you. We've had tea,” I answered, then turned to Rivers. “Never a dull moment here on Planet Earth.”

“I just figured something out,” she said. “You must be related to Anna Hand. She's my favorite author, lifetime. I cried all day when I heard she'd died.”

“She was my aunt. My mother is her youngest sister. ‘Louise, the selfish one.' ” I hung my head. As always when a fan mentioned Anna I went into protective mode. Protect Anna, protect the family, protect myself.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I know it killed you all. It killed me. I'm sorry.”

“It's all right. It's been eighteen years. It never seems to go away, however, because of the books. How does it go: ‘Power from the preceding generations hobbles the new generation.' I always think of that. Besides Anna, there is my mother. She's a noted journalist with three books. I keep thinking I should change my name to avoid comparisons, but it always seems too late. Mother kept her maiden name and after her divorce I took it, too. Because I'm proud of the heritage, proud of them.” I was surprised at myself. I never opened up like this to strangers, especially not to Anna's fans.

“That line's from the epigraph to
Field Notes.
I always loved it too,” Royals said. “ ‘These are the patterns that enthrall a genetic line. Power from the preceding generations hobbles the new generation. Are we doomed to repeat the patterns?'

“My father was the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives,” she continued. “My mother is a doctor. They're a shadow and they're both in good health and still cooking. Thinking about me every minute. They'll know about this lockdown by now.” As if on cue her cellular telephone started ringing. She didn't answer it. “It's probably on CNN that Heathrow's closed. They always know my travel schedules. They ferret it out of me.”

“Go on and answer it and tell them you're all right.”

“No. They need to get a life. All they do is read and watch television and spy on my brother and me. They try to get him to spy on me but he never tells them anything. He's a good man. You don't need a husband, do you? I'm looking for a wife for him. He's not wealthy wealthy, but he's got several million. He's a lawyer. He plays golf.”

“I'll meet him if he's as interesting as you are.”

“I'm not interesting. I'm a cliché inside a self-fulfilling prophecy inside a stereotype. I just let it happen. I don't fight it. I'm too busy being alive. How long does it take them to open my suitcase and find the computer?”

“Maybe they want to copy your files.”

“That would be a thrill for someone. Nasty self-pitying notes from my large self-pitying daughter. Dumb fundraising ideas from my so-called peers in the Jackson Junior League, I get about sixty requests for money on any given week. The number increases every year. Carlton and I are thinking of stopping giving money to everyone for a while just to get some peace.”

The agent returned. “We need to ask you a few questions,” he said. “If you will go with me we need to go to another office. Sorry for all the bother.”

“If you have my suitcase in the next room I'd like to get a few things out of it,” Rivers began. “My hand is in a cast as you can see and there are things I need for it.”

“How long do you think we are going to be delayed?” I added. “If there's been an announcement we didn't hear it.”

“Please follow me,” the agent said. “This won't take long. I'm sure there'll be an update soon on the situation.” We all stood up and began to follow him across the long room full of computers and desks. Rivers was walking beside the agent. I was right behind them. “I can't imagine what you need to ask me about,” she was saying. “If there's something in my suitcase I didn't put it there. I'm the wife of a powerful and influential man and I have lawyers. I want to call one of them and I want to know what's going on. I don't like this secrecy.”

“They don't tell us what is happening,” the agent said. “They just tell us what to do. Has anyone handled your bags since you packed them?”

“How would I know? My maid packed them. She's been my maid for ten years. She doesn't know what a terrorist is. I was busy getting ready to leave and in meetings to talk about the work I came to Italy to do.” Rivers was starting to look angry and she was definitely turning into the star of the show. A sleeper charismatic, I decided. They don't call them upper-middle-class white protestant princesses for nothing.

We entered a larger office and sat in comfortable chairs while a British officer in a splendid uniform talked to us.

“What is your work here?” he asked Rivers.

“Not here in London. I'm going to Florence, Italy, to arrange to borrow some pieces of art, paintings, and to copy a statue by Michelangelo. It's for an exhibition we're having next year to coincide with the International Ballet Competition we have in Jackson, Mississippi, every spring. I'm trying to borrow two drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. You can imagine the time and trouble that takes. Not to mention copying the statue. We want to have the copy made in Italy. It's very complicated.”

“Are there photographs on the computer of things you are trying to borrow?”

“And of fifty other works of art I'm going to see and talk about using. Plus all the financial information about borrowing them. You can call the museum in Jackson or my husband or any of my lawyers or the museum's lawyers or the headquarters of the ballet competition, or you can call the governor of Mississippi or our senators. Call the governor. His name is Haley Barbour and he's a friend of mine. He used to be head of the Republican Party but you aren't an American so maybe you don't know what that is.”

“All right. I think that pretty much explains it. They said you wanted to get things from the suitcase. Could you tell me what you want and we'll have someone find them for you?”

“I want a change of underwear. Some panties and a brassiere. Tell them I want white ones. Not the colored ones, just some plain white underpants, you call them drawers, don't you, and a bra.” Rivers stood up. “And if we're going to be here long I'd like my laptop computer when you're finished copying the files. . . .” He started to speak but she interrupted him. “Don't apologize. I want security to be tight. I don't mind being questioned. I don't mind having you go through my things. I am a grown woman. I should have known better than to travel to Europe during these troubled times but it seemed it would be worth it because art is a good cause or at least it used to be.”

“We'll have someone bring your undergarments and the computer to you in the lounge.” The panties and bra were getting to him. I could tell. Rivers was at least fifty years old but she still had the stuff. Not just the aforementioned slow-charging charisma but plenty of the sexual power that always accompanies it. She had these enormous and really lovely breasts and a small waist. Women with big breasts hardly ever realize the power they wield, even on men who weren't breastfed as babies. Anyway, I decided, the world is rich and full and everything keeps happening.

When we got back to the lounge our group was waiting for us and had grown. A young Chinese woman and her mother had joined us, and so had a tall, good-looking, redheaded man who I recognized. His name was Robert McArthurs, he was the book editor for the
London Telegraph
,
and he had been my aunt Anna Hand's editor at Faber and Faber when they were young. I learned he had come across the room to see what the excitement was, and when he found out I was traveling with the group, he had waited to speak to me. I had met him years ago when he came to Charlotte to look at some manuscripts my Aunt Helen had found in Anna's papers. The reason I recognized him was that there had been a photograph of him with Anna that my grandmother had kept on her piano until her death.

“Where have you been?” Cynthia asked. “My God, we thought they'd taken you away. What was the problem?”

“Photographs on Rivers's computer. Have you found out if it's only our plane?”

“They haven't told us a thing. They just walk around and posture.”

“There's a lot of posturing,” Rivers agreed. “I suppose they feel threatened when this sort of thing happens. What is happening? Does anyone know?”

The tall good-looking redheaded man who had been
my aunt Anna's
editor and friend—if you want to remember how wonderful and strange the world is even in the midst of disorder and the threat of disaster, which is probably the main thing the human race has been in the midst of since we first began as scared little lemurs, not to mention since we have known how to make and use language and store knowledge and talk about the future and the past—whose name was Robert and whose photograph with Aunt Anna had been on a piano
that I played
when I used to try to play, took over. “It's a general threat to the airport and the city of London,” McArthurs said. “We're going to be here for a while so put some crackers in your pockets. They might run out of snacks before too long.” He laughed and smiled and looked at me. “I'm Robert McArthurs. Which one of you is Miss Hand?”

“Me,” I said stupidly. He really was an extraordinarily handsome man. I held out my hand to him. “Louise Hand. You were Anna's editor at Faber and Faber. I've read your letters to her. It's lovely to meet you. What are you doing in the airport? I thought you lived in London.”