Foxfire (27 page)

“I'll get some more.” He poured himself half a glassful. Maria can rustle up some tequila over in Mex town. She'll have some money tonight, no doubt.”

Amanda stared at him: the square freckled face, the sandy hair receding a little at the temples, the clean white shirt and well-scrubbed hands. Hugh was always clean and there was about him an indefinable air of breeding.

“Do you mean you'd take money from her like—that?” she cried flushing.

“I'd take money from anyplace.” He raised his glass and let the sharp liquid fire down his throat.

“Money's not all that important,” she cried in sudden anger. “You'd have enough if you didn't drink it all up.”

“Oh, indeed?” His little green eyes sparkled at her over the edge of the glass. “Have
you
enough?”

Amanda opened her mouth and shut it again. She walked away from him back to the drainboard and resumed slicing the kidneys. “One must learn to be contented with things as they are,” she said coldly, “until one's luck turns. Of course, it can turn sometimes.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” said Hugh draining the bottle. “Rich uncles can die in Australia, oil wells can gush out of the back yard, you can stub your toe on a gold mine.”

She sent him a swift glance over her shoulder, then her eyes moved to the closet which contained her dressing case and the notes on Pueblo Encantado. The impulse to speak of them faded as soon as it came. Even if it were not for loyalty to Dart, Hugh was no fitting confidant. She could imagine the jeers with which he would puncture her dream.

The thought of the dressing case, however, reminded her of her immediate worry and she gave a long sigh.

“Cheer up,” said Hugh. “Consider the gaiety in prospect at the Mabletts'. We'll make the welkin ring.”

“It's not that. I'm worried about my family, Hugh. I haven't heard from them in three weeks. I can't understand it. Mother always writes.”

“Oh, I wouldn't worry,” said Hugh after a moment. “Sure to be some good reason.” He stared at the empty bottle. The liquor was beginning to work, to bring the fleeting stage when he could take the image of Viola and put her off across the room and examine her objectively.

The Russian Empress—smothered in white orchids and one priceless pearl ring. So you've never married, my dear—that panting, groveling, threadbare young interne didn't really count as a husband, did he! Did he count as a lover, though? You thought he did, as I remember. And you believe in love, you said so. Right in your suite at the St. Regis, you said so. Maybe you'd like your lover back? A rich, successful lover, of course. We all know you like success. Unless perhaps you have an extra bedroom in that suite. Unless you'd like a gigolo to keep? “I'll whistle and you'll come to me, me lad—but you better come in ermine and fine raiment this time, come wagging your tail if you must, but carry in your mouth for me a little basket full of priceless pearls, too.”—He stared into the corner of the room, and she stood there behind Amanda. She was wearing the old sherry-colored velvet, the one good dress he had ever bought her. Above the velvet her white skin and auburn curls were dazzling as they had been on their last night together, but her face was that of the new photograph with its wistful beckoning smile, and its softened eyes.

Hugh's chair scraped on the linoleum and he got up. “Thanks for the rotgut. Regards to Dart.” He staggered a little as he pushed past Amanda towards the door. He slammed it after him.

Amanda did not hear him. She was staring through the bedroom windows towards the road. “There's a car stopping,” she said. “Surely not Dart yet.” She wiped her hands on the towel and went to the front door. She stood frozen by the door as she heard a high familiar voice cry—

“Oh, it couldn't possibly be this dump! We'd better go back and ask again.”

Amanda moistened her lips as she peered through the window. Incredulous relief mingled for an instant with an extreme dismay.

She threw open the door, calling gaily, “But it
is
this dump—” She ran down the path. “Oh, Mama—Jean— how in the world...” She flung her arms around them both and burst into tears. George was there too, red and embarrassed, at the wheel of his Packard sedan.

There was an inarticulate moment of kissings and little choked exclamations, they then got into the house. Mrs. Lawrence threw one horrified glance around her daughter's home, sat down on the bed and began to chatter fast. “Darling, it's a surprise, of course, that's why we didn't let you know. It all came up quite suddenly and we've been over ten days driving here.”

“God-awful roads,” said George, wiping his forehead, “and this last piece is beyond words. I know I've cracked an axle and I had four flats.” Through his horn-rimmed sun glasses he stared at his sister-in-law distastefully. “How any civilized person can live here...” He sat down on the only chair and it creaked and wobbled under him.

“Oh, don't mind George,” said his wife. “He's just cross because he didn't want to come in the first place. Give him a drink, Andy.” She smiled at her sister.

Jean was crisp and cool as always, not a wrinkle in her beige traveling suit or her white crepe blouse. Her calfskin pumps and her neat handbag both shone sleekly brown.

“I'm afraid I haven't any liquor. I could make some coffee,” faltered Amanda, conscious of her stained levis and that she was wearing an old, torn shirt of Dart's.

“Never mind—” said George, heaving himself out of the chair. “I've got a flask in the car. Want to look at that axle anyway.” He stamped out with a relieved air.

The three women on the bed turned to each other in a warmth of emotion but for a second nobody spoke. Then Mrs. Lawrence put her hand on Amanda's arm. “You're thin, baby. You're not dieting, are you? You know I disapprove of that at your age.”

“Oh, I know I'm a mess—I'll fix up later. But tell me how it
happened.
What made you come? I'm so excited, and I was so anxious.”

It took quite a time to get the story straight between Mrs. Lawrence's digressions and Jean's impatient corrections, but it seemed that George was worried about business, especially now that that man was in the White House. George's father felt that they'd have to close down the San Francisco branch. George had meant to go by train to attend to it but Jean and Mrs. Lawrence had persuaded him to drive and call on Amanda en route, since business was so slow anyway he could take the time. He hated driving and he had fussed a bit about expense but he couldn't deny it hadn't cost much. Mrs. Lawrence had managed to sublet her flat to a friend for a month, so she was able to pay most of her own expenses. They'd parked Sally Lou and her nurse with George's parents, so everything had worked out fine.

“Where's Dart?” asked Jean, looking around the two-room cabin as though he might be concealed under the furniture.

“Still at the mine. He'll be down later.” Oh, what am I going to do with them? Amanda thought. What about dinner? What about tonight? Perhaps she hadn't actually lied in her letters home but she certainly had not prepared them for Lodestone either. She had given the impression of an adorable little bungalow, of quaintness and romance. She had boasted of Dart's exalted position in the mine. She had emphasized intimacy with the great Mr. Tyson, saying how much he admired Dart. She had even built the Mabletts into amusing characters and Tessie Rubrick into a close friend—all with a view of assuring them of standing and success in Lodestone.

“Well, as soon as Dart comes, we'll all go out to dinner together—” said Jean, whose sharp eyes had seen the four sliced kidneys on the drainboard and who was rapidly revising her expectations. “You wrote there was a good hotel, and we'll get rooms there for the night.”

Amanda looked not at Jean but at her mother, whose plump pretty middle-aged face was turned on her daughter in barely concealed dismay. “It's a terrible hotel,” said Amanda trying to laugh.

“Never mind, dear—” said Mrs. Lawrence. “It doesn't matter.”

Jean laughed. “It'll matter plenty to George but I'll muzzle him somehow. After all, it's only one night.”

“Only one night—” repeated Amanda. She looked at the two sleek confident women whom she loved, who represented protection, who had re-created for her at once the lost climate of cherishing care. “Is that all you're going to stay with me?” Her lips trembled.

Jean and Mrs. Lawrence exchanged a quick glance. Jean shook her head and her lips formed the words ‘‘not yet.”

“Oh, we have a plan,” said Jean briskly. “You'll like it. Tell you about it later when Dart gets here.... Andy, for pity's sake do something to yourself. You look like an Okie. Don't they have any beauty parlors in this dump—in this place?” She surveyed her sister in stern disapproval; the stained levis and the torn man's shirt might be condoned as temporary, but not those reddened hands with broken fingernails, nor the dry alkali-stiffened hair dulled to the shade Jean thought of as “dishwater blonde” without its weekly application of golden tint.

“No beauty parlors and no drugstores either,” said Amanda. She hesitated, then added, “Nor could I afford them if there were.”

Mrs. Lawrence sighed, her hand went to the clasp of her pocketbook. She could squeeze out a little gift later, a few dollars, but George was so difficult about every penny. Jean who knew this fact even better than her mother wasted no time on commiseration.

“Well, everyone's poor just now,” she said. “It's the fashion. Everyone, that is, except Tim.” Again her glance crossed her mother's.

“Tim Merrill?” asked Amanda, stepping out of her levis and fumbling in the dark closet for her good heather suit. “How is he? Crazy as ever. I had a letter from him quite a while ago. He seemed to be enjoying life.”

“Uh-unh,” agreed Jean, lighting a cigarette. She got off the bed and walked over to lean against the wall near her sister. “He's still very fond of you.” Her bright hazel eyes watched Amanda's face, and were rewarded by a ripple of confusion tinged with satisfaction.

“Oh, nuts,” said Amanda, moving into the kitchen to wash at the sink. “He's just putting on an act. Keeps him safe from all the clamoring lassies who'd like to be Mrs. Merrill.”

Jean fallowed her into the kitchen. “Did you tell Dart you'd heard from Tim?”

Amanda scrubbed her face on the all-purpose towel and frowned. “As a matter of fact, I guess I didn't. I meant to—but a lot happened on the same day I got the letter and I forgot.” A lot happened? she repeated to herself. That was the day she had visited Mrs. Cunningham, the day she had been so excited over the discoveries in the Apache basket. Jean certainly would not consider these happenings of any moment, would consider them idiotic. “Anyway, the letter wasn't important,” she added.

Jean was silent, watching her sister brush her hair and make up her face at the cheap, fly-blown mirror over the sink, watching her emerge into a pale approximation of the brilliant assured young beauty who had been the darling of the proms, one of that season's most popular debutantes. Thank God, she hadn't
really
lost her looks. All Andy needed was some professional grooming and a different attitude. All she needed, Jean thought competently, was the courage to admit a mistake. That this recognition might take a little time and tact to achieve, Jean was prepared to allow, but of the eventual result she had no doubts at all. Jean's incisive mind had scant patience with the fuzzy gray edges of problems which seemed so important to other people, but she had learned diplomacy in the efficient chairmanship of many committees and the management of George. Besides, she was extremely fond of her little sister.

“Would you say Dart was the jealous type?” she asked lightly, leaning over to help Amanda fasten the clasp of her pearl necklace.

“Why, no, I don't think so.” The question startled Amanda who saw no sense to it. But a memory flickered through her mind. On Tuesday, when they had been driving home from Saba's burial and while they were still on the reservation, they had had a flat tire. An old Apache woman had come wandering down the road and paused to watch Dart change the tire. Amanda upon seeing the woman had not been able to prevent an exclamation of horror. The woman had no nose, in its place there was a jagged hollow and two black nostril pits. “What's the matter with her face?” Amanda asked when the woman had passed on, and Dart replied, “The punishment for adultery in the old days. Her husband mutilated her.”

To Amanda's shocked protest that that was barbarous and ghastly, Dart had answered, “Yes, Apaches are a poor benighted lot. They've never heard of the dangers of suppressing the libido. They take adultery very seriously.”

But that had no direct bearing on Jean's question. And Dart was certainly not possessive. He was too much of a self-contained individual for that.

“What in the world made you ask such a question?” asked Amanda, twisting around to look at her sister.

“Idle curiosity,” said Jean, smiling.

The trend of Jean's remarks became clearer at dinner, which was not dinner but a greasy platter of ham and dubious eggs and fried potatoes, flung on the table at the hotel by a resentful Mrs. Zuckowski, who detested serving meals after hours. Supper was at six and that was that, nor when the Dartland party appeared at eight o'clock did Mrs. Lawrence's and Amanda's pleading, or Jean's reasoning, or George's infuriated demands move her in the least. It was Dart who drew her quietly aside and managed to reverse her decision. Mrs. Zuckowski like many another woman in Lodestone whose existence Amanda did not suspect and Dart ignored, had a soft spot for Dart.

They had the dining room to themselves and Jean waited only until George had simmered into silence before turning to Dart and circling nearer her plans. “Andy tells me your mother just passed away, Dart. I'm so sorry, we all are. But you hadn't seen much of her these last years, had you?”