Fallen Beauty (10 page)

I stopped setting the table and imagined the scene. The station began playing “Embraceable You” and it made me greedy to go to the theater, watch a show, find an escape, even for just a night. I closed my eyes and allowed my remembrance of that night at the Follies to tease me, but Everette snapped off the radio, and the fantasy dissolved. Marie looked at him, her face a film of bitter emotions. When she saw I was watching her, she returned her attention to the chicken frying in the pan.

I’d known Everette would be trouble as soon as I saw those devilish blue eyes at the Valentine’s Ball of 1928. The church ladies had been whispering about his new position as city manager and his eligibility. When he caught our eyes over the punch, Marie had stepped toward him. I remembered that I’d felt the need to pull her closer to me, but she’d slipped away and into his orbit.

Everette now sat by the window. When Marie looked back at him, his face wore remorse. I glanced at Marie’s belly and then at Grace. I felt the cold emptiness inside me, and the reminder of having a child alone, with no one else to love and help raise her. My own pain made me think that Marie’s marriage must be worth fighting for.

•   •   •

VINCENT

T
hey call me a man’s name because it is what I want, because I am no woman and no man but a force, alpha of my own motion, limited by no one, guided by the haphazard fancies of my heart. I think if my loved ones and lovers knew my thoughts, they would be frightened and think me soulless.

I may choose to bypass empathy and sympathy because sharing in others’ misery is no good for any of us, but I am not soulless or heartless. On the contrary, I am soul-full and heart-swollen. I long for the space to let them all in at once, but one so fully fills my space—the one before me—that I have no room at any one moment for more. But more will squeeze in later and have his share, her share, and then he and she will be addicted.

There is no cure for me.

As it turns out, I only got to take Everette to my bed at that party. It started as my punishment for George, and also because I wanted Everette’s wife and then his sister-in-law. I thought he would lead them there, but I was wrong.

He amused me though, the politician. Who knew a man of the government would be so susceptible to a woman of the arts? He told me he needed a fairy-tale romance. It was awful how he thought he sounded poetic. But sneaky blue eyes like his make up for many deficits.

It was not at all unpleasant. I rather enjoyed the rough mannishness that he tried to smooth for small me. I enjoyed the feeling of controlling a man who could have physically snapped my bones. I recited a poem or two, and the oaf thought I’d written them about him. His eyes widened; his forehead creased. I even saw his eyes mist over, and I had to control my impulse to laugh. When I smiled, he thought I was smiling with him. Would he have been so smitten if he’d known I’d composed the lines for his soft, eager wife sitting drunk on the lawn just beyond the window? Would he have pined as I know he does, or would he be outraged and bitter? I get a strange thrill to think of a man of his stature outraged. What could he do in his anger?

But enough about him. I have no desire to allow that vulgar man in my mental space for one minute more. I only want to think of the seamstress, the sister, the sad woman at the church door with flower petals falling around her, about whom I’ve written. Her tense energy is so much more arousing than the open wanting of her sister. I would much rather a chance at taming that horse.

I need distraction from the control I’ve lost with George. His resistance is killing me, literally shaving the sinew of my heart, damming the very blood in my veins, turning me cold and gray from the inside out. The seamstress will be a distraction, and one I desperately need. I know she hates me, and I also know that hatred is just a breath away from love, and that in spite of her loyalty to her sister, I still have a chance. Even if it’s a small, diaphanous chance.

LAURA

I drew a line on the wall with heaviness in my heart. Grace seemed to grow at double speed. How I longed to protect her from the adult world.

“Revember?” she said, pointing lower on the wall.

“Yes, I
revember
,” I said, imitating her child speak.

“I got Dolly.”

“You have a good revembery,” I said.

She ran her small, dimpled finger over the line.

The tinkle of the shop bell took my attention to the door, where an elderly woman with thick glasses and a plain, clean face walked into the store. She did not smile, but she looked at me directly and nodded in a friendly way. I rose from where I was crouched on the floor.

“May I help you?”

“I need a dress or two. Nothing fancy. Something that won’t show stains in the knee when I garden, or splatters when I cook.”

Strangers in search of clothing had been nearly the only customers sustaining the shop, so I was eager to make her order.

“I just got in two new bolts of dark wool, green and charcoal gray,” I said. “Those might suit you, especially with the coming winter weather.”

“That will be fine,” she said. Her eyes flicked to Grace, who stared at her.

“You glasses,” said Grace.

“Yes, I do. How do you like them?”

“Owl. Hoot.”

“Grace,” I said, placing my hand on her shoulder.

The old woman smiled for the first time. “Yours too. We look wise, yes?”

Grace smiled, showing her dimple, and then turned her eyes down, suddenly shy from the interaction and observation she might not have meant to utter out loud.

“How did you come by glasses for such a wee child?” asked the old woman.

“I noticed her having trouble reaching for things. She has always been clumsy, but she started running into chairs and such. I took her to the oculist down the way, and had her eyes checked. Lo and behold . . .”

I motioned for the old woman to stand on the pedestal before the mirror and she obliged, all the time gazing around as if trying to memorize the shop. It made me uneasy. There was no scrap of manliness here, and sometimes that caused old ladies to ask questions, which caused them to judge me. This gave my heart pain because I liked how she’d spoken to Grace and I didn’t want her strong, handsome face to frown at me once she knew my situation. I could not explain it, but I felt as if I wanted this woman to like me.

She stood still as a statue while I measured her arms and bust, and took down her numbers on my notepad. As I ran my hand across her back, I admired her strong, straight build. Though small, she held the impression of sturdiness. I’d like to be as sturdy at her age. I caught her wink at Grace in the mirror, and then continue to scrutinize the shop. When I stood from measuring from her waist to the floor, she spoke.

“You live here alone with her.” It was not a question.

I nodded.

“Her father?”

I felt my breath catch in my throat and shot my glance at Grace, horrified at the woman’s directness. That was not a trait I wanted to embody at her age, though it seemed inevitable, given how many so-called ladies were comfortable asking me the same question without a shred of intimacy between us.

“He’s no longer with us,” I said. It was the line I’d given Grace since she was old enough to notice. It implied that he’d died, and in a way, he had. To me, anyway. I almost hated to say it to this woman, who seemed too sharp for half-truths. She raised an eyebrow at me.

“I raised my three girls alone,” she said. “Sent their father packing. Not an easy thing to do back then. Not easy now.”

This was not what I had expected her to say.

“But it was something I had to do. You can too,” she said. “Hold your head up.”

The stiffening of my posture was involuntary. I did not wish to discuss my personal problems with a stranger, no matter how much I wanted her approval. I passed her the notepad.

“If you’ll write your name and address below my measurements, I’ll go and pull some patterns for you.”

She stared at me for a moment, then took the pad from my hands.

Grace stood in silence, watching the two of us, and when I stepped into the back room, she was at my heels, always my little shadow. As I crouched down to find the patterns I thought would suit the woman, Grace came over and knelt beside me.

“Witchy one,” she whispered.

The witchy pattern was for a costume I’d made my sister for last year’s fall festival. Grace had seen the costume hanging in a closet, and wanted one for Dolly and herself. I had given in on Dolly, but I’d told her she’d have to wait until she was older to wear the witch costume. I didn’t need any more negative attention for my girl than she already drew. Nonetheless, when the pattern wasn’t made in black, it had a practical look, and would suit the old woman. I pulled the witchy pattern and two others, and walked them back out to the shop. I almost dropped everything on the floor when I saw the man who stood before me.

Father Michael Ash was not smiling when we emerged from the storeroom, but he broke into a wide, forced grin at the sight of us. His prematurely graying black hair was cropped tightly to his head, and his angular features and shadowed eyes gave him the look of one who was hungry.

“Miss Kelley,” he said, almost in a whisper, “I’m sorry to interrupt.” He let his voice trail off and would not look at Grace or at my customer. I thought he must have worked himself up for a visit to the shop and was determined to survive it untainted. His pale eyes caught mine and would not let go. “I came to check the progress of the altar cloths.”

My heart started hammering in my chest, and the room felt tight and warm.

“I’m sorry, Father,” I stammered. “Do you need them today? For some reason, I thought they were due at the end of the week.”

“No,” he said. “I was only out walking and I thought I’d check.”

I worried that the gossips in town would see him in my shop and start talking. Panicked, I wanted him to leave. I glanced at the woman, and her eyes moved from him to Grace, who sat on the floor dressing Dolly.

“I’ve just got a bit more of the trim to finish,” I said. My voice sounded unnaturally high. “I’ll deliver them the moment they’re ready.”

Suddenly, Grace jumped up and thrust her doll at Father Ash. He started as if she were a snake, and dropped his journal. I reached to pick it up, but he said, “No!” He snatched it up himself. “No, thank you, I mean.”

“Witchy doll,” said Grace.

I pulled her into my side with more force than I intended, and Grace cried out and scowled. Father Ash’s eyes stayed on Grace for a moment but then he looked back up at me. His face seemed to have lost some of its color. He gave an awkward nod, and disappeared through the doorway as quickly as he’d come. I turned to the woman. Grace was again the object of her gaze.

“You look as if you made that child alone,” she said.

I looked down at my daughter. “She is the image of me.”

When I looked back up at the woman, she had turned to the door and gazed out across the street, in the direction of the church.

“A blessing, indeed,” she said.

•   •   •

VINCENT

S
urgery. Surgery will cure this ailing body of mine. My stomach, my heart, my female organs. I will have them all removed. They have brought me nothing but trouble.

I’ve been to the Doctor’s Hospital. They tell me it’s a disease of the bowel, but I know what it is. I am filled with the poisons of my lovers. Their philters have turned sour in the linings of my soft tissue, eroding me to the bone with their dark wishes for my pain.

Why can’t they be like me? Why can’t they respect the pillars of Beauty, of Love that we have, erecting without corrupting them? Why can’t they leave them unmolested, a line of sculptures that would dress a garden more splendidly than the work of Rodin? Instead, they insist on tearing them down, clawing and scratching away at the figures we’ve made.

I have told Arthur, whose lungs seem more functional for now, that I intend to have surgery, and he shames me for it. He says it will be suicide if I do anything to my body, and I lash at him and declare him simple. How can he not see the physical pain that emotions are capable of inflicting? How can one with such depth refuse to see what is plainly before him?

Eugen understands that he must not try to stop me. He wants to nurse me through whatever ailment I bear. But I do not want his steady arm and his soothing words and kindness. I want my mother, and she is here. Since my youth, ever the nursemaid, always care giving. I can see her in her younger days in a smart white uniform stamping off to this town and that, leaving us girls to care for ourselves while she cared for others. Only our illness would bring her back. She would nurse us with such tender care, and there was no illness she could not conquer. I grew to love my illnesses because they brought Mother back to me, and because then I wouldn’t have to keep house or braid my sisters’ hair or shop for groceries and make meals. I could recline and be waited upon and simmer in the hot fever of poetic creation. Oh, if I could just burn with perpetual word-giving fever, and never have to deal with the menial tasks of living.

I feel her hand upon my hair and my mind is soothed.

“Stop thinking, Edna.”

I turn to look at her, her kind old face gazing down at me with perfect mother love.

“How do you always know me?” I ask.

“You came from my rib, child,” she says, her eyes twinkling with mischief through her thick glasses. I smile at her.

“You are the greatest blasphemer I know.”

“High praise in comparison to so many.”

I laugh, which hurts my abdomen. I clutch my stomach and curl into a ball on the bed.

“Why must I bear this pain?” I ask. “I should be working on my poetry, not thinking of which pills they’ll give me after surgery.”

“You do not need surgery,” she says. “You need newness. Freshness. You should come to the sea. You are too isolated up here.”

“I’m not alone. I have Eugen.”

“Bah. He is merely a manifestation of yourself when you are happy, which has always been the smallest part of you. I don’t even know if he is real.”

“Then who arranges our domestic life so carefully?”

“I told you, it’s you. On your more functional days. Your worldly days.”

“I wish I could be a woman of the world. Instead I am a cloud woman. A tempest.”

“Do not begrudge your calling,” says Mother. “It is worthy and wild, but it does not come without a price. All great things must be bought at a high cost. Otherwise you’d just live in the town and bake bread or sew things.”

“Don’t you call sewing common,” I say. “Don’t belittle that woman. She is far from common.”

“Ah, here you are. Waking up,” says Mother. “She is common. Nothing but a common girl with a bastard child. A fallen beauty. Oldest story in the oldest book.”

Anger rushes through me and pulls me to sitting up in bed. “How dare you? Why do you help connect her to me if you think her common? She makes a form of music with her fingers. Have you seen what she sews? When I saw that dress at the ball, I knew she had magic. When I found out she’d made it, I knew poetry wasn’t the only vocation.”

“Please,” says Mother, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. “She’s no conjurer. Any woman with a set of hands and a sewing machine could make those. Why couldn’t she make the child’s father stay with her if she had such magic?”

“Maybe she wouldn’t have him,” I yell, throwing off my blankets and sitting on the side of the bed. “Maybe she is like you, and turned the damned useless man out because he did nothing but drag her down.”

“No,” says Mother. “She doesn’t have it in her. She’s a begging, fearful seeker of approval. I could see it in her eyes when I went to the shop.”

I stand and storm over to my vanity. “You are a heartless crone!” My chest heaves and I stare at Mother’s profile in the mirror. A smile lights her face, and she begins to cackle. My anger turns to rage and I slam my hand on the vanity.

“Why do you laugh?”

She stands from the bed, walks over to me, and presses her hands on either side of my face. “Look at you, Vincie.”

I realize that I am standing, that my stomach doesn’t hurt; the fever, the fever is still there. My heart swells with elation, and I begin to laugh.

“Cured by passion,” she says. “Freshness. Vigor. Fight. This is you, Edna. Not the girl curled in a ball on the bedsheets. Take up your lance.”

I clutch Mother in a ferocious embrace. My restorer. My healer! I pull away and grin at her.

“You didn’t mean all of that,” I say. “Clever woman.”

I don’t bother to get dressed. I run in my nightclothes out to the writing cabin. The cold stones against my bare feet, the dry grasses whipping at my arms, no fire in the grate. Just me and my pencil and my notebook, and my words.