Fortunate Lives (11 page)

“The thing is, it’s so frustrating!” Dinah said a trifle petulantly. “Sometimes she just sulks and
won’t
show up and do her beautiful dance. She’s
so
vain!” Dinah was clearly scornful, and she added softly, “I really don’t approve of her very much, because it’s not as if
she
does
anything helpful. She’s a… oh… a
common
sort of fairy. Except, of course, that she’s so beautiful, and her dance is so pretty. We can try to flatter her enough to
bring her out of the trees, but I just don’t know if she’ll show up.”

“I know she’ll come!” the little boy said suddenly, practically shouting at Dinah with conviction.

David was talking with Netta and Anna Tyson when Dinah approached, and Anna Tyson eyed her doubtfully. Dinah bore her no goodwill
at all, and she only asked if she
wanted to join the other children out on the porch, and Anna Tyson shook her head. “Okay. That’s fine, but you’re welcome
to change your mind,” Dinah said and moved past her to speak to a little girl nearby.

David gave his mother an odd look, but she was so irritated at him for standing there drinking wine and talking to Netta while
Christie dealt with all those children by herself, that she simply looked back at him blankly. Besides, she had caught snatches
of David and Netta’s conversation as she passed by them to greet other guests, and she didn’t want to stay in the vicinity.
“… because our sex life was fine until I got pregnant. I mean, we had Anna Tyson…” and Netta gestured slightly to indicate
her daughter, stolidly present beside her and listening carefully to every word.

“… and he could only have sex with my closest friend. She lived with us to take care of Anna Tyson, and…” Dinah glanced at
David’s face and saw that his expression was exactly like that of the small children to whom she spoke of Moonflower. “… you
know, when I first met him I was repulsed and attracted—all at once, all at the same time—by his… oh… almost a feminine sensibility.
So, of course, until I
realized
I just thought he might be bisexual, but it was just that Celia was right there….” The children always pretended that they
already knew all about Moonflower; they pretended that it was nothing out of the ordinary, their faces carefully unperturbed,
just like David’s as Netta leaned toward him. “I think that in his mind she became me, you see. It was just that
responsibility
made him impotent.” Netta was speaking earnestly, and with that repeated gesture of flicking her hair back and shaking it
to settle behind her shoulders, although her hair only reached the nape of her neck. Oddly enough, that gesture, more than
Netta’s words, grated on Dinah’s nerves, and she led the last
stray child away to the porch, leaving Anna Tyson behind.

The light had faded beyond the softly lit rooms, and the adults refilled their drinks and began to make their way to the porch
as well. David joined Christie and took up his guitar. The children quieted down at once, and after a few trial runs, and
under the weight of his stern expectation, they sang along with him:

The itsy bitsy spider

Climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain

And washed the spider out.

Out came the sun

And dried up all the rain.

The itsy bitsy spider

Climbed up the pipe again.

When the luminous blue spider dropped down over the roof of the porch, floating and bobbing in midair, the children shrieked
with combined excitement and terror. Dinah gave Vic an imperceptible nod, and he disappeared from his post at the door to
tell Ellen that none of the spider’s wires could be discerned in the dusk.

“No, no,” Dinah said, and she moved among the excited children, bending down to explain. “
That’s
not Moonflower! She’s just waiting to see if it’s safe. And, of course, I’ve told you how vain she is. She wants to hear
you sing a song. She thinks she’s much better than that spider. He has to spin a web to come to earth, you see. Why, Moonflower…
well, she can
fly
. You’ve got to sing another song for her, though! Whenever she’s not sure if she’ll come or not, she sends down her friend
the spider. He checks to see that everything’s safe. But, really! You’ve all got to sing!”

Long ago, in Sheridan, Mississippi, when Martin’s great-aunt had brought the magical apparition to earth on one of the evenings
of summer when the moonflower vine bloomed on her veranda, he remembered that he and his cousins had been instructed to sing
“Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.” But Dinah and Ellen had secularized it, substituting a Peter, Paul, and Mary song that both
the children and the adults would know.

David changed chords and began singing harmony to Christie’s purer contralto.

Puff the magic dragon

Lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist

In a land called Honah Lee.

The children were hesitant to join in, and David, with feigned exasperation, exhorted them to sing. “Okay. Okay, you guys!
Mark, I can see you’re not singing, and I’ll tell you… Moonflower’s not coming if she doesn’t think everybody
wants
her.” And the children did finally begin to sing the refrain. They were familiar with the song from kindergarten and day
care and tapes and videos their parents bought for them, although only the older ones knew the verses.

At last a shimmering golden shape, doll-sized and lighted from within, and with clearly discernible, pale, moving wings, made
its appearance just over the edge of the porch roof. The children rushed forward and pressed themselves against the screen
in an effort to see better. David and Christie continued to sing.

Oh!

Puff the magic dragon

Lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist

In a land called Honah Lee.

Little Jackie Paper

Loved that rascal Puff

And brought him string and sealing wax

And other fancy stuff.

“You’ve got to keep singing,” Dinah said softly, ushering the children back from the edge of the porch, back into their little
cluster around David and Christie. “I think she’s going to dance for you,” Dinah whispered urgently, “as long as you keep
singing for her. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s so beautiful! Please sing for her!” And she turned to the parents, who were standing
back against the wall, looking on indulgently. “Everyone has to sing, now! All of you sing along!” And each year the parents
did sing along, and each year they were momentarily taken aback by the pure delight on Dinah’s face.

Oh!

Puff the magic dragon

Lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist

In a land called Honah Lee.

Together they would travel

On a boat with billowed sail

Jackie kept a lookout perched

On Puff’s gigantic tail

Moonflower spun and twirled up and down the length of the porch, halting hummingbird-like with her translucent wings beating,
and then darting away while the group on the porch repeated the refrain over and over. One little boy could not contain himself,
and he rushed to press his face against the screened wall. His father came forward and picked him up and let him straddle
his shoulders, while
they all sang on. For a moment there were only David’s and Christie’s voices in fairly complicated harmony through one more
stanza.

Noble kings and princes

Would bow when e’er they came

Pirate ships would lower their flags

When Puff roared out his name.

Oh!

Puff the magic dragon

Lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist

In a land called Honah Lee.

Christie and David leaned together, their voices intensifying. Attractive and self-absorbed, they sat at the center of things,
observed by everyone, emanating a kind of oblivious, youthful sexuality the parents had long ago passed through and the children,
of course, had not yet reached. The two of them had become so involved in singing the song, involved in the satisfying combination
of their voices, that the music reverberated in the soft air. The whole assembly felt a need to join them, and everyone sang
the final chorus without a trace of reluctance.

Oh!

Puff the magic dragon

Lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist

In a land called Honah Lee.

David struck several chords to end the song, and the children sagged against each other or their parents, exhausted.

“What’s that?” said Dinah. “Oh, no! Look outside! Has Moonflower fallen? I see something glittering on the
ground. I hope she didn’t make herself too weak to fly! She did such a long dance, tonight! Someone go see!”

It was almost entirely dark, and as soon as the singing stopped, Vic had turned on the floodlights mounted on the roof to
illuminate the backyard. The children pushed each other in their haste to get through the porch door. Right outside the steps
they came upon a wide trail of silver glitter, and they stopped en masse, looking back to the lighted porch, uncertain what
they should do.

Dinah joined them and bent to peer at the ground where they pointed. “I think it’s a trail! I think Moonflower must have left
a trail for you. See if you can follow it to the end and maybe you’ll find out where Moonflower comes from. No one knows.
See if you can find her!” And the children dashed off, following the trail of glitter around the corner behind the house,
until they reached the lilac bush that was strung with white lights and wound all around with garlands of gold braid and tied
up with the golden crowns, the burnished doves, the bracelets and necklaces, and the tiny gilded cars. The children were stunned
with excitement and exhaustion and sudden greed, and Dinah wandered back to the porch while they fell into squabbles about
this or that prize. Greed among the children of other people didn’t bother her at all, and she left it for them to sort out,
knowing that each child would get something.

The parents watched in high spirits, too, enjoying having their children be so entertained. As the children began to make
their way back to the porch, wearing a crown and beads or bracelets, David sat down on the bench next to Netta, who was leaning
her head against the wall, looking out from under her brows at the whole event, which was winding down. The children’s voices
were less high-pitched, their movements less frantic.

Anna Tyson had been drawn into the singing circle of
children in spite of herself and was still out in the yard with some of the others. Netta was frowning slightly.

She turned her head against the clapboards to look at David. “I really didn’t want Anna Tyson to get involved in this,” she
said, as matter-of-factly as if they had been in the middle of a conversation, but loudly enough so that Dinah heard her at
the other end of the porch, where she was moving back and forth collecting glasses and paper plates.

“I meant to take Anna Tyson home before this all started, but I didn’t want to get up in the middle of the singing and disturb
everybody. But I mean, we don’t do Santa Claus or any of that.” She paused for a moment, considering. “Really, don’t you think
it’s cruel in a way? I think it’s wrong to lie to children, don’t you? But Anna Tyson was really enchanted. I could tell.
Now I don’t know what to do when she talks about it. I’d be lying to her, wouldn’t I, if I let her believe in all this when
it’s really just one more of those insidious ways that adults lie to children. Don’t you think so?”

Netta didn’t sound angry, only genuinely anxious for David’s opinion. “It’s bad enough just living in a town like this,” she
said with some scorn, “where kids are bound to believe that people are safe, that there aren’t people dying on the streets,
that there’s no hunger in the world, no real poverty! Anna Tyson’s whole life here is really a lie anyway, isn’t it? And this
sort of…
fantasy
… it’s worse, because it’s a calculated lie.” She stopped again and peered at David intensely. “I don’t mean that I think
Dinah and Martin
intend
harm,” she assured him and then drifted off into her own thoughts for a moment. “But you know, morally I think that may even
make it a greater deceit, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. Yeah. I guess it’s a lie. I don’t know,” David said, his voice bemused; he had never thought of this as any
kind of deceit. “Actually, this is one of the best memories
I have of my childhood.” He spoke with a slight note of apology. “It was just for us, you see. Not like Santa Claus. And my
mother always seemed amazed every time Moonflower appeared. Her act was skepticism, so we had to convince her.”

As David grew quiet, he was filled with affection for everyone in sight. Netta was so exotic to him that he hadn’t paid much
attention to what she was saying; he had merely been interested in the fact of her passionate ideas and her uncommon frankness.
But at the other end of the porch, his mother was finally, in this day, enormously pleased to have been championed by her
son.