I Cannot Get You Close Enough (39 page)

“Does that mean I can see them?” We were on these huge granite rocks on a spit of land where the wind comes in. It was almost sundown. Another unbelievable irresistible breathstopping sunset going on. Imagine people
talking
in the midst of that. Hydrogen atoms fusing into helium before our eyes and we take
ourselves seriously
and think we are
important
. Goddamn, it's just too wild. Here was Helen in a white Vittadini bathing suit and dark orange and green and black beach coat (some new Chinese designer), Bernardo sandals. I thought she was supposed to be starving in a garret with the poet. Her hair grown out past her shoulders and pulled back with a black barrette. You would hardly know she is the same startled Charlotte housewife in her Chanel suits who presided over Anna's so-called funeral. She came into the dining room in the middle of the wake and dumped two cartons of cigarettes into a cut-glass punch bowl and wadded up the paper sack and handed it to a maid. It was the rudest thing I have ever seen anyone do. A lot of people were smoking at Anna's funeral. We didn't have a body to bury so we just stayed there for six days and got drunk and smoked. LeLe fucked Anna's old boyfriend. Anna's married lover showed up for the memorial service and sat with Mrs. Hand. Well, that's a long story and I was telling you about Helen's metamorphosis.

“You really look great,” I said. “I guess you know that.”

“I've never been in love before. I didn't know they had this. This friendship. He's my friend, Lydia. Every day I'm glad he's there. I don't know how to talk about it.”

“So you have to have these letters or he won't love you?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” She sat down facing the sea, pulled the beach coat around her and tied the belt.

“Nothing. Just don't go hounding Noel about this and she'll probably give you something in the end. She's the most generous person I know. Don't start getting bootleg copies from Olivia or anything like that.”

“Lydia, I am Anna's executor. I'm her closest living relative. I was the nearest thing to, well, I don't know what. I'm her executor. She left it in my hands. I want her memory preserved.”

“Oh, Helen.”

“You won't let me see them?”

“I can't. They're Noel's.”

“All right then. I'll wait. Well, tell me about the summer. Has it been fun? Did you have a good time up here?”

“Yes. I think I did.”

“It's ridiculous for Jessie to have this baby. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes. What can I do?”

“Nothing. We have to help with this wedding and keep our mouths shut.”

“She could still get an abortion.”

“No, it's too late. She's told too many people. King wants it too.”

“Then we're off, aren't we? What are you going to wear?”

“You must be kidding.”

“No, I really want to know.”

“I'm going to wear a little aqua David French. It's real old. I bought it for a wedding in Charlotte two years ago.”

“Are your kids okay, Helen?”

“They're fine. They're just like they were when I was there. They've been ruining my life for twenty-seven years, Lydia. Now it's my turn. I quit. They can come up here and live with me if they want. I've invited them. That's all I can do.”

“Do you miss them?”

“No. I really don't. Does that shock you?”

“I guess so. A little bit.”

“Let's walk,” she said. “What happens if you go down that way, around the rocks?”

“It gets wilder. It's windy there in the afternoons. There's a path, but we never go that way. We go down toward the piers.”

“Let's go,” she said and began to walk from rock to rock. Think about the sky, I told myself, think about the sea, it is all one thing and all this talk and language is just our strange invention. We walked for a while in silence, then stopped where birch trees barred the way.

“Anna once said there are four people involved in any love affair,” Helen said. “Do you believe that?”

“Durrell,” I said. “That's who said it. Darley said Purse-warden said it. No, I think it may be six, or even eight.”

“This is where she died, in this ocean, this part of this sea. She has ruined the ocean for me forever, but everything she wrote about love has turned out to be true. I keep thinking of things she told me.

“Once she said to me, ‘When I was a child I was never wrong about love. The first boy I loved would still be right for me. I saw him several years ago on a street in New York City. He was in town on business and we spotted each other and spent an hour in a coffee shop holding hands and talking. I should have married him and had a dozen children. Instead, we had these other lives.'

“‘What does he do?' I asked. ‘Who is he?'

“‘He runs a bank in Charlotte. He collects art.'

“‘You recognized each other on the street?'

“‘How could we forget? We loved each other when we were twelve.'

“That was Charles Arthur,” Helen said. “He married Sally Brasfield.”

We started back. Later, when we were almost to the house, she spoke of Anna again. “She told me not to sacrifice myself,” Helen said. “She cried every time I got pregnant. You never had your life, she told me. When will you have your life?”

“What did you say to that?”

“I got mad. I said, You're jealous, Anna. You don't know what my life is like. But she did know. She would look at Spencer with that look, as if nothing he could ever do was good enough for her. My children are not bright, Lydia. They are like their father, plodding. I was a prisoner all those years of plodding. Does everyone think I've lost my mind?”

“No one you should care about. As for me, I wish he had a brother.”

“He has four. One is a Jesuit who's about to quit. Do you want to meet him if he quits?” She giggled. Anna's giggle. It undid me. “His name is Thomas,” she went on. “He's very handsome and doesn't look repressed. I thought when I met him, Well, if Mike dies maybe I can have his brother.”

“Send him on. I'd like an ex-priest.”

“Well, look, we better get to the house. Mike is bringing champagne. We might as well celebrate, since they're going to have this wedding.”

I called Noel back that night. “It's okay,” I said. “She'll wait to hear from you. All she can think about is this guy.”

“She's very happy?”

“Oh, you know, the ecstatic state. I wish it was me. Goddamn.”

“Lydia.”

“Yes.”

“Your turn will come.”

“I've had some turns. Anyway, it's okay and I found the linens for Jessie. They're gorgeous. She will adore them. I'll give them to her tomorrow. Crystal already gave her a gold bracelet from Shreve's.”

“A bribe. I used to do that to Andine until I learned better.”

“I don't know if Crystal's going to learn. Well, anyway, Helen's at bay for now.”

“Maybe I should pick out parts of the letters and let Helen see some passages. Do you think she would be happy with some passages?”

“You don't owe her anything. They were written to you. Do what you want to do. How are you feeling, by the way? Why don't you have Marissa take you down to Mignon's to see the fall collection. I heard it was marvelous.”

“Anna wanted her to be happy. My little Helen, she always called her. How long will she be happy, do you think?”

“Six months, six years. Who knows. At least she will remember it. I was thinking this afternoon, now at least Helen has something to remember.”

“Does he love her?”

“It's possible. He's living with her.”

“Bring the letters to me, darling girl. I'll decide when I have them. And come home soon. Call and tell me about the wedding.” Her voice disappeared into the click. Noel. Noel. She had power over twenty letters and Helen's happiness might hinge on what she did about them. Is the world composed of traps and quicksand? Is everybody nuts? Will I have to move to Nepal to find somebody living in the present?

I went into the kitchen and found Traceleen and Crystal Anne deep into one of their Monopoly games. Crystal Anne was losing. She was down to five one-dollar bills and a small stack of fives. “Roll the dice,” Traceleen said. “Don't look like that. I'll lend you some money if you get in jail again.”

16

TRACELEEN We had a meeting to make our plans for the wedding. I made sandwiches and coffee and there were petit fours Miss Lydia had iced. If we were going to have a wedding we were going to do it right and not act like we were ducking our heads. All the young people were eager to help out. The only one of the young people I keep worrying about is Olivia. She has so much nervous energy. She acts like she just might burn herself out.

“She's the one who needs a boyfriend,” Andria said. “But she acts so smarty around boys. She never lets them talk. All she does is brag about herself and say what she's going to do.” Andria has been pulling away from Olivia ever since we stopped the literary club.

“Olivia wants to be famous,” Crystal Anne put in. “That's all she thinks about.”

“Then why was she going to jump off a pier?” I asked.

“She was only saying that. She says anything to get attention.”

“She can't even swim,” Andria put in. “She just paddles around.”

“Well, let's don't gossip about someone behind their back,” I said. “We have enough to do getting ready for a wedding.”

The young women stayed up night and day for two days making their own bridesmaids' outfits. Yellow for Crystal Anne, blue for Olivia, green for Andria. Jessie wore a long white pique gown they found for her in town, cut down low in the bosom and with a beautiful long train. Also, they bought her a white silk suit to use for a going-away outfit. She and King left right after the ceremony and went off on a wedding trip to Hilton Head. King's real daddy was paying for all of this. He came in the night before the ceremony. He had left his girlfriend behind (to everyone's relief) and was very nice to Mr. Manny and his son and his new daughter-in-law and me. I began to doubt all the terrible things Miss Crystal has said about him over the years. I now think it was just one more example of two young people caught up in events beyond their control.

Crystal Anne and I were in charge of the flowers. We bought up everything we could find at both the florists in the neighborhood. Lilies and baby's breath and white and yellow tulips and sprays of old-fashioned tea roses. After the flowers were all arranged around the altar Crystal Anne took photographs of them with her Instamatic. She has grown two inches this summer. The light of my life. I cannot imagine my life if it had not been entwined with this little precious girl.

Since Jessie was the bride, we had to hire a lady from town to play the Wedding March. She came out with a harp and set it up beside the flowers and played harp music before, during, and after the ceremony. Mr. Daniel gave the bride away, doing nothing to hide the tears in his eyes.

 

One more incident. After the wedding was over and the young people had left, Miss Lydia brought out the portraits she had done and gave them to the people they were of. There was a small one of me and one of Crystal Anne but the main one was of Miss Crystal standing underneath a liveoak tree in her yard in Mandeville. Sunlight is falling everywhere. There is moss hanging down from the trees and strands of Miss Crystal's hair hang down from her face. She is dressed in her old lavender polyester robe (which looks much better in the painting than in real life), draped to reveal the lovely soft lines of her body.

“Oh, Lydia,” she said when she saw the painting. “You have made me immortal.”

“Well, not immortal maybe, but it's acrylic. It will last ten thousand years.”

“That is amazing,” Mr. Daniel said. He put on his glasses and walked up very close to inspect the painted face. “You have to paint Jessie and Olivia. Name your price. I want you to start painting them today.”

“I don't know how long that would take. I'd have to go to New Orleans and Charlotte and do studies. I couldn't do them both at once. Let me think about it.” She gives Mr. Daniel this look like she is so hard to get all of a sudden.

“Whatever you want to do,” he says. “As long as you paint their portraits.”

The next day Andria and I flew back to New Orleans. We had stayed as long as we could stay. Miss Crystal drove us to Portland and put us on a plane, an Eastern Airlines 747. The rest of them were driving home by way of New York City. They were taking the station wagon and leaving the Peugeot until they could find someone to drive it down.

“There's a boy at the drugstore who might bring it,” Olivia said. “He's in love with Andria. He'll probably drive it down.”

“Don't go starting that,” Andria said. But later she gave Mr. Manny Kale Vito's phone number and when we got to the airport I noticed she called him on the phone.

“What did he say?” I asked, when we had taken our seats on the plane.

“He said if they asked him he would do it. Wait till he meets my momma. That will be a test.” She laughed her stage laugh, this sort of cold, devil-may-care laugh she has picked up from Miss Lydia. I guess this is the new women of the world. I guess they think they can pick and choose if they ever do agree to wait on a man. As for me, I was just glad to be home. Mark met me at the airport and took me home and gave me a second honeymoon. After all those love affairs of the summer I had forgotten what I had at home, an abiding goodness of my own.

17

LYDIA As soon as we got back to New Orleans I went over to Noel's and delivered the letters. Here it is, I said, and put the cardboard box on the table beside the copier. My notebooks and the letters. Noel's room is painted ivory this year. The bed faces the curved dormer windows that look out onto the backyard. Facing the bed is a picnic table covered with plants. The copier is nestled among the plants. Beside the copier is a Mason jar containing a set of Hear-No-Evil, See-No-Evil, Speak-No-Evil monkeys. Noel has broken the monkeys apart and placed them in the jar so their feet are touching. Outside the jar are two more sets of monkeys, still joined, watching the ones in the jar.