Magnolia City (17 page)

Nella nodded.

“But . . . why?”

“We no longer found him suitable.”

“You can’t, Mamá. You know as well as I do he supports his whole family. There’s no father.”

“We’ve made our decision.” The clock chimed five. Nella walked back into the drawing room. “Now I must ask you to leave before Lamar shows up. You’ve caused him quite enough heartache for one week.” Nella sat in her armchair in front of the great Diana screen and began transferring the contents of her handbag to an evening purse. She ignored Hetty, crouched in the foyer.

“You’re throwing me out?”

“You’ve got it backward, Esther. You were the one who abandoned me, remember?”

Hetty stood and heaved up her suitcases, but had no idea where she was going. “How am I supposed to get home?”

Nella continued to look away from her. Hetty could never remember this happening. She found it unbearable. Her shock and frustration turned to panic. She wanted those black eyes on her, seeing her, whether in rage or love she didn’t care, as long as they were seeing her. But Nella only looked down as she continued sorting through her purse and said, “May I remind you that the streetcar stops right in front of the hotel?”

Hetty left the Warwick by the side exit, putting a line of shrubs between her and the doorman. The greenery shrank back, and she was out there, on the esplanade, in the deepening haze of a late afternoon, wandering aimlessly through the clipped hedges, shifting the heavier bag from one hand to the other.

She stopped.

Spread-eagled on the grass before her was the Texas star, bronze centerpiece of the city fathers’ master plan. It was pointing in five directions. She had never noticed that before. Clearly five directions. She was astonished. It lay there in the grass, a dark star burned into the earth, an unexpected horoscope pointing with its tarnished rays toward the different paths unfolding before her: back to the hotel.
No longer an option.
East toward the refineries out along the Ship Channel.
Her future?
Due south to the lagoon in Hermann Park.
Time to think
. West toward the trolley stop.
Where would she go?
North to the Heights.
Back to that dingy garage apartment.

She decided to follow the southern ray into the park, to the spot where she always came to be alone. Skirting the lagoon until she reached the far end, she let the suitcases slip through her fingers and fall to the grass. She sat on one of them, long scarf dangling about her ankles. She pulled out a Lucky and lit it with her shaking fingers, watching the light dropping in spangles across the sheen of the water. She sat there until a length of hot ash cascaded onto her hand.

She was all heat and ashes inside, too. She couldn’t get Nella’s face out of her mind, looking away from her, sorting through the contents of her handbag. As if lipsticks and compacts were more important than a daughter! As if Hetty were a cast-off, something to be thrown on the floor in the back hallway like her clothes sprawled there in the dust.

The Lucky burned her fingers. She’d hardly smoked it all. Her fags weren’t tasting as good as they used to. She threw the butt into the lagoon. It hissed when it hit the water.
The cruelest thing of all,
she thought,
was telling me they fired Pick
. Nella knew what that would mean to Hetty, who had discovered him. Lifting the Waller family out of the poverty they’d sunk into in Settegast had been like dragging six people out of quicksand. What would happen to the children now? It was like Addie and Ollie and Minnie and Lewis were sitting there on the grass in front of her, not saying anything, just watching her with those orphaned eyes.
No one is coming to rescue us,
they seemed to say.
No one is coming to help.

Hetty’s face muscles weren’t strong enough to blink back the tears any longer. They trickled down her cheeks until she was sobbing into her scarf. “Oh, Mother! I hate you! I hate you!” she sobbed over and over, but even as she did so, she knew which tip of the star she had to follow. The one that pointed back to the Heights. She had no choice. She had chosen Mac because he was the man she wanted. He had that itch in his soul, the grit and growl in his voice that made him a fighter. And now she needed him to fight for her in a way Lamar never could. She needed him to take a steel bit in his big hands and use it to drill through layer after layer of limestone, to go down to the heart of the earth where treasure lay, to wrest out of rock a kingdom of her own where she would never need her mother and father and sister again. Then let them come begging for her affections! Yes, as she dried her tears and choked down her sorrows, she knew only one direction was possible now. It was clearly there, in the earth. Auspicious and plain. A point, a ray. She had to follow the star whether she wanted to or not. Because as of today, it was no longer just a state emblem. She had made it her own.

And now she knew why it always flew alone.

Hetty moved in and out of the constant stream of walkers flowing in both directions downtown. She had no idea where to catch the Heights streetcar. She glanced about, hoping to find someone to ask.

Then, almost a block away, through a blur of shadowy figures, her eye was caught by a cloud of pastels glowing in the evening light. Three young women seemed to float out of an elegant gray car drawn up at the curb. It took a moment for all three of them to alight on the sidewalk, then they turned and started down the block, coming toward her, unmistakable. They fluttered along in a tight little flock, trailing wisps of silk, parting pedestrians as they passed. Hetty recognized their gait—long sleek legs clicking along on the same beat, as in a dance. Belinda Welch, Doris Verne Hargraves, and Winifred Ilse Neuhaus. She debated whether to face them or flee. She’d been crying and probably looked a mess. On the other hand, she was the first among her friends to wed and that should win her a certain status. These girls would appear naive standing next to her—a
wife,
a seasoned woman who could be blasé about such dreaded rites of passage as the wedding night and the honeymoon. She decided to stand there and let her friends discover her.

Doris Verne was the first to come running up. “My crazy pal. Did you go and get married on us?”

“So you’ve heard?”

“Of course. Everybody knows. We’re all in awe.”

“A week ago.”

“Congratulations!” She gave her a warm hug. “I can’t believe it.”

“Sure you can,” Winifred said. “In case people don’t know she’s an elopist. She’s carrying suitcases.” She kissed Hetty on each cheek.

Lockett’s daughter Belinda hung back and watched with eyes the color of ice at dawn. Winifred noticed her gazing at Hetty’s waistline. “Put those nine fingers down, Bel. We promise not to count the months, Het.”

“Why does everyone think I’m pregnant?” Hetty flung her suitcases to the sidewalk.

“You should hear what people are saying.”

“I don’t really care what people are saying. My friends know the truth and that’s all that matters to me.”

“That’s right, honey child,” said Doris Verne. “And we’re happy for you. How was your honeymoon?”

“We stayed in the bridal suite at the Galvez.”

“How swanky,” said Doris Verne.

“I played roulette at the Hollywood Dinner Club. Guest of the Maceos.”

“You know the
Maceos?
” Belinda asked.

“Yeah. My husband introduced me.”

“Aren’t they . . . you know . . . on the lam?” said Winifred.

“Heavens no! They run everything down there.”

The three girls just stared at her.

Belinda checked a dainty watch on her wrist. “Aren’t we going to be late for our motion picture?”

“Now
I’m
jealous—what are you going to see?” said Hetty.

“That thing about slave days in old New Orleans,” she answered. “
The Love Mart
with Billie Dove.”

“The most beautiful woman on the screen!” Winifred said with mock breathiness. “I wanted to catch
The Jazz Singer
in Vitaphone, but these two pooh-poohed it.”

“It’s just a gimmick, Wini,” Belinda insisted.

“I wish I could go with you,” Hetty sighed. “I’ve got to find the trolley to the Heights. Do you know where it stops?”

“Sorry, kid,” said Winifred. “I’ve never ridden on a streetcar.”

“I do feel so sorry for you—married and all,” Belinda said, planting a quick peck on Hetty’s cheek.

“Don’t bother, Bel. She’s already somebody’s love slave, and we’re just seeing a movie about it,” Winifred said.

As they moved off, Doris Verne squeezed Hetty’s hands and murmured, “Let’s have luncheon at the club. Call me.”

Hetty turned on the lights in the living room of the garage apartment. She called Garret’s name, but he wasn’t home. Nothing had been tidied up, and the kitchen door was still closed. She set her suitcases down and walked cautiously in that direction. Opening the door a crack, she reached inside and flicked the light switch. A frantic scurrying ensued as the palmetto bugs retreated back into their nests. She left the light on, like a fire to keep wild animals at bay, and slammed the door. She placed a dirty towel from the bathroom across the crack so none of them could shimmy through. In the bedroom, she found a blanket to cover herself on the couch, where she lay down exhausted to wait for Garret.
Maybe I had to come back,
she told herself.
But I don’t have to sleep in his bed.

She left the lights on in the living room, too.

Garret finally arrives home and tells her to pack. Before she knows it, he’s driving them around and around the plaza of a desolate town. Wild dogs follow in the dust and yip at them. The land is as brown and mangy as the dogs, yielding only the thorns of prickly pear cactus. Hetty doesn’t understand why they’ve come here. As Garret circles, she glances into the plaza. Old men sit on massive stone benches talking in Spanish. She knows it’s Spanish because they have the heads of gargoyles and their words float out like smoke rings. They are talking about her. Her name floats in the air: Esther de las Ardras. Her ancestors are there, with stone dust on their hands, watching from the quarry.

Church bells toll. Out of the stoneworks, white as marble, a bride walks into the plaza. Her face is covered by a silk shawl caught in her hair with a Spanish comb. The gargoyles lift it to reveal her dusky face: It is Hetty’s grandmother, Liliana Ardra y de la Herrera, who has just become Señora Beckman. Liliana goes to the fountain and washes the stone dust off her hands. The water trickling out turns bloodred. The wedding guests all hold their glasses under the spigot and fill them with wine. Hetty looks everywhere for Garret but can’t find him.

On the sofa in the garage apartment, aching and alone, Hetty turned over to make sure it was day. She pushed herself up and set her bare feet on the floor. Dust motes swam by the thousands into the sunrays leaking through the drooping venetian blinds, but she didn’t care. She was so glad to see that the wild dogs running through her dreams had found the dawn at last.

She dressed and cautiously opened the door into the kitchen. No palmetto bugs in sight. She found a tin of Folgers and set the percolator going. After unpacking, she wandered from room to room, picking up clothes and drinking too much coffee. As mugginess mushroomed in the air, the reek of gasoline drifted up from the garage below.

A pile of dusty books lay on an old shelf littered with pencil stubs, cuff links, and empty cigar jars. She perused the stack, wondering if it had been left by the previous tenant:
The Outline of History
by H. G. Wells,
Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis,
If Winter Comes
by A. S. M. Hutchinson. Her fingers were drawn to an exotic-looking book called
White Shadows of the South Seas,
but when she opened it, some of the pages fell out in her hands. The glue holding the binding together had been eaten away. She dropped the book and ran out into the sun shuddering. The roaches were eating the books!