Five Fortunes (43 page)

When the news was over, she turned off the set and went into the kitchen to get another glass of decaffeinated ice tea. She went back into the front parlor and sat there, with her plate of supper in front of her on a folding TV table. Mayonnaise seemed to be melting off her tuna salad and pooling under the lettuce. The doorbell rang.

It was two weeks away from the longest day of the year, so it was plenty light still outside. Nevertheless, Aunt Sallie thought of this as night. She was in for the night, doors locked. Not expecting any doorbells. She looked from her chair toward the hallway, and took a big drink of her ice tea. She wasn’t going to answer the door with a mouthful of tuna fish. Even if she was going to be gunned down, she wanted a clean mouth, and it was more likely she was going to see some little child selling cookies, or Pastor Campbell, someone she might want to smile at.

The doorbell rang again. Aunt Sallie dabbed her lips with her paper napkin and lifted the TV table to the side. She walked to the door, listening to the sound of her own footsteps.

Now. What was the best way to do this? She could call out, “Who’s there?”

But if it was somebody bad, why would they answer honestly?

And if it was somebody good, they would feel as if they were interrupting or frightening her. She would have to look for herself.

Listening to the sound she was making, as if she were watching a movie, she slid the bolt above the doorknob to the side.
Kachink
.

She

342 / Beth Gutcheon

turned the key that slid the door latch back into its socket inside the door.
Chunk
. She turned the knob and opened the door, only as far as the chain would allow, about an inch and a half.
Clink
.

No knives or guns or terrible hands came forcing their way through the crack, though she was ready to fling her considerable weight against the door to close it again if they did. She’d break fingers if she had to. But no. Now the tricky part. She had to move sideways so she could look out the door, and that would put her in the way of a blade or a bullet, if they were out there. She tried to maneuver so most of her body stayed behind the door. She craned her neck over to the right, holding her balance by keeping her hand on the doorknob and one foot braced against the bottom of the door.

She got one eye all the way out and in the clear, so it could see through the crack to the doorbell ringer.

Standing on her porch, on her actual doormat, was a Negro girl.

She was in shadow, but you could see that she was pale and yellow and bony. She had a lot of brown freckles on her pasty skin. Her hair had been dyed orange, but was growing out. It was brushed back against her skull and tied in back at the nape of her neck. She had been looking at the street when Aunt Sallie first clapped her eye on her, but now she had turned back to the door and was looking in at the old eyes watching her. Behind her, on the porch, there was a small, soft bag, more like a gym bag than a suitcase. A yellow leather jacket lay across it.

“Aunt Sallie?” said the girl. “It’s Delia Amos.”

T
here was a fund-raising event every day that summer in Idaho, sometimes two. Jimbo Turnbull was back. He rode an elephant into downtown Boise when the circus arrived. The local press rallied round. All three candidates appeared at the Rocky Mountain Oyster Feed and Fun Day in Eagle. The KBCI-TV crew caught up with Laurie just as Jimbo was downing his third barbecued oyster and laughing with a crowd of good old boys.

“Senator Turnbull,” said the reporter, perky in her pink blazer,

“there are a lot of visitors here today who might not be familiar with all our, uh, our local customs. Would you mind telling us what these are that you’re eating?”

He looked at the camera rather than at her. His meat. His medium.

“A little way to the east they call these prairie oysters, but this here is the place to get them done right.”

“Now I understand that these are not actually—seafood, is that right?”

“You see an ocean around here?” Guffaw, guffaw. The chorus of good old boys in the background had seen this routine year after year. “No, I believe the polite way to say it is
Bull’s Testicles
.” Har har HAR HAR har.

“I understand they’re being served in a variety of ways today…”

The reporter played up to them.

“That’s right. Used to be you’d have just your oyster grilled over an open fire. But nowadays, you’ve got your barbecued, got Cajun, probly can get them with hollandaise down the line. We’re continental.”

343

344 / Beth Gutcheon

“With mole sauce,” someone called from behind him.

“Yep, probably with mole sauce,” Jimbo agreed. Mole sauce seemed to amuse the boys.

Laurie Lopez arrived flanked by several staffers. The reporter said, “We found Judge Lopez in the crowd and asked her to join us.

Judge Lopez, are you a fan of these…oysters?”

“Sissy can’t eat these, they’d put hair on her chest,” boomed Turnbull.

“I grew up on a ranch,” Laurie said, as if that meant she’d eaten them all the time. “I thought I’d try the Cajun ones.” Jimbo’s crew chortled with surprise and interest.

Jimbo stood back, hands on hips, wearing a huge grin. Someone handed Laurie a paper plate bearing a spice-crusted lump of animal protein looking revoltingly like what it was.

She speared it with a fork, lifted it to her mouth, and took a large bite. Hannah, the pretty blonde staffer from Idaho State, hid her eyes against the senior staffer’s shoulder. “She’s chewing,” he whispered to Hannah. “She’s swallowing…she’s got it down.”

“How was that, Judge Lopez?” chirped the reporter. She looked as if she would love it if Laurie threw up.

Laurie smiled broadly and said, “Great. I like them spicy.” Jimbo and his gang were hooting. Har har har.

“Oh, Mr. Prince,” cried the reporter. “We’re having a caucus here, on Rocky Mountain oysters!”

Lloyd Prince was being pushed through the crowd by his ten-year-old daughter. His son was beside him, and his wheelchair was covered with campaign posters. Behind him came staffers carrying canvas bags of bumper stickers and “Prince for Senate” buttons.

“Would you care to join us?” cried the reporter. The cameras were now on Prince. He looked up at the reporter with a quizzical smile.

“You mean, would I like to
eat
one? Do you know what they are, young lady?”

“Well, yes, I do…” She was standing there with dead air all around her, unsure of what to say next.

Five Fortunes / 345

“Have a poster,” said Prince’s daughter, and someone handed one to the reporter.

“Thank you so much,” she said and giggled, and held it for the camera as Prince was wheeled away.

Laurie had to stop in the fairgrounds john and brush her teeth.

Then they marched for what seemed like miles along rows of cars under dusty sun. When they finally found the campaign station wagon, someone had covered the “Lopez for Senate” bumper sticker with one that read “Jimbo = Winner.” All along the rows, every car in the fairgrounds field had decided to vote for the incumbent.

“Look at that! Look, that’s a
great
moment!” crowed Walter. They were watching the evening news where Laurie was taking her bite, with a smile.

“Look at that, she doesn’t turn a hair! Laurie,” cried Lynn, “we can use that in a spot!”

“Look at Turnbull in the background, he’s gaping!”

“He can’t believe she’s doing it!”

“I’ve decided to vote for Lloyd Prince,” said Laurie. “I’m going to find Amy and we’re going to go get drunk.” Walter watched her leave the room.

J
ill walked into the lobby of the hotel Colleen referred to as

“The Le Parker Meridien.” It was about nine-thirty on a July night, and as always on nights when Woody played, the jazz room was packed. No way they could get a table, she was told, but she could stand at the bar. (A pretty girl alone at the bar was always good for business, as long as she didn’t make commercial arrangements with other patrons.)

Jill didn’t think of herself as a pretty girl, although tonight she was wearing an ancient Halston of her mother’s that was downright slinky. She thought of herself as a sort of dumpling with legs. A knish. Nothing anyone was going to look at anyway. This is no doubt what prevented her from noticing that several men looked at her more than once as she made her way across the room to wait at the bar for Colleen.

She ordered a glass of wine and stood watching the door. A half hour passed; a man left with his date, and Jill got a seat. A man in a linen jacket and a shirt with no collar, a little too chic for Wall Street and a little too old for Jill, tried to buy her a drink. She explained that she was waiting for a friend.

The set began. She bought another glass of wine and thought, This, Colleen, really, is beginning to be a drag. A man moved to the seat beside her and smiled. She smiled back. Between numbers he tried to ask her a question, but after she had shouted, “I’m sorry, what?” at him three times he gave up. The set lasted forty minutes, and the applause was wild. Finally the band left the stage.

346

Five Fortunes / 347

There was some turnover at the bar. Jill was nursing her drink.

She looked at her watch. As soon as she finished this one, she was going. And this was the last time she was going to fall for this.

A boy of perhaps twenty, wearing chinos and a crisp blue shirt, stepped up to the bar beside her and ordered a beer. He had beautiful long eyelashes, she noticed in her brief glance. He took his beer, took a sip, and then said to her, “You look like you’re ready for another.”

“No. I mean, no thanks, I’m waiting for someone.”

“I know. You’re waiting for me.”

Jill rolled her eyes. “Nice try.” My, aren’t we sophisticated, she said to herself at the same time. Where did that come from? I’ve got to get out of here.

“No,” he said seriously, “you actually are waiting for me.”

Something in the way he said it made her turn to stare. He nodded slightly.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You’re not.” She dropped her head into her hands and stared at the wood of the bar through her fingers. Then she looked up at him. “Is this supposed to be cute?”

“Could we walk around the block?”

They pushed their way out through the crowd and into the bright hotel lobby. They went out to Fifty-seventh Street. “I’m sorry I was late—I couldn’t talk to you once the set started; I can’t hear more than one thing at a time.”

She stared at him. He smiled slightly, and pointed to his ears. He was wearing fairly sizable hearing aids.

“I can’t sort sound. I can hear the music with these turned up, but I can’t hear anything else.”

“And your name is Colleen.”

“No, my name is Tom. Colleen is my sister. I started signing on with her computer because I didn’t know how to change the screen name. She was major pissed when she got the bill.”

“How did you know her password?”

“I guessed. It had to be either her boyfriend’s address, or his phone number or his birthday. It took a while, but I had a while.”

“Was I ever talking to her when I talked to Sweet2?”

348 / Beth Gutcheon

“No, it was always me. She was in Europe. Her boyfriend was paying her Visa bills for her while she was gone.”

They were walking in the balmy night. Amy’s sleeveless dress was fluid and cool on Jill, but she suddenly had a vision of herself playing dress up. It was one thing to go meet a girlfriend who would laugh at the thought of raiding your mother’s closet. Her sense of irritation returned.

“So now that she’s back, how did you write to me?”

“I finally bought a pathetic old Apple with a Stone Age modem, but it took me all this time to earn the money. Colleen changed her screen name and everything. So I went on being Sweet2.”

“So, you do this often?”

“Meet an on-line friend? No. Never. Well, the only other time was the time we went to Carla’s.”

“What do you mean ‘we’?”

“I was there.”

“
Where
?”

“At the bar. You weren’t looking for me, and I was upset that you were so pretty. When I saw you I didn’t have the nerve to…”

“You
saw
me?”

“In your beautiful Coke bottle coat, yes. I’d been hoping you’d be some awful dumpy thing and we could be friends.”

Jill began to laugh.

“You have no idea how funny this is,” she said. The laughter was boiling out of her, a little fueled by the fact that she believed him, and was beginning to remember how many long, charming, un-guarded letters she’d gotten from him, how much she liked him.

Him.

“We can go back to being on-line pals, if you want. I just wanted you to know, and this was the only way I could think of to tell you.”

“Really,” she said, still laughing. “You have no idea.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“Oh, eventually. Let’s walk.”

W
hen Carter drove up to her house after work the second week in July, she found her worst nightmare sitting in the driveway.

It was Reverend Campbell’s car. Reverend Campbell himself was sitting at the wheel. Aunt Sallie Spear was sitting in the front seat beside him. There was a girl in the backseat. They were all sitting quietly staring forward like people at a drive-in movie, except what they were looking at was her garage door.

Carter got out of the Brown Bomber. She walked around to the driver’s side of the waiting car, and the minister rolled down the window.

“Good evening, Reverend Campbell,” she said.

“Good evening. We came to pay you a visit.”

“Good evening, Aunt Sallie. Would you like to come in the house?”

“Yes, we would, if it’s not inconvenient.”

“Not at all. Let me just get the baby.”

Carter went back to the Bomber, where Flora was strapped into her triple-A-rated crash-proof kiddie seat in the back. Carter un-clasped the belts that held her in, and lifted her down. Flora took Carter’s hand and walked with her up the front steps, where the three visitors were waiting. Flora was wearing little OshKosh overalls and pink sneakers. She had little pink wooden beads on the elastics that held her braids. She was bright-eyed and curious.