Magnolia City (3 page)

“Well, at least I didn’t miss the climax.”

“And that’s the most important part!” She exchanged a knowing glance with him. “My sister’s queen this year, you know.”

Without warning, he reached over and traced the outline of her face with his forefinger. “
You
should be queen.”

“That’s funny. Someone else just told me that.” She shrugged his finger away. “But don’t feel sorry for me. I am a member of the court—a princess.”

“What table are you sitting at?”

“Citizen’s Bank of South Texas.”

He nodded, impressed. “One of the oil banks. How do you rate?”

“My father’s president. He’s the one who threw you out.”

“Oh, yeah. King Eddie! And you are . . . ?”

“Nnamreh. Princess Nnamreh. Consort to Queen Nottoc XIX. But my name’s Hetty if that’s what you’re trying to find out.” She gave him a teasing glance. “And yours is Mac.”

Flashbulbs went off in Garret’s eyes. “How’d you know that?”

“You made yourself rather notorious downstairs.”

He chuckled, his eyes gleaming. “I think the cotton carnival could use a little excitement before it conks out completely.”

“You may be right. But No-Tsu-Oh will never die.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a place.”

“And where is this place?”

She looked around. “Well, at the moment, you’re in it. Need I say more?”

Hetty’s fast line of gab worked. When she sat down with Lamar on the sofa, Garret turned the bartending over to Butch and joined them. She introduced the two men, and they talked oil across her for a few minutes. The cushions were so soft, she was wedged between their bodies and became aware of how different they smelled: Lamar with his usual scent of sandalwood cologne, Garret emanating the musk of leather and Stacomb hair cream. A couple of Lamar’s college friends came over and interrupted, so Garret engaged her in a tête-à-tête. She was grateful they were sitting down. She didn’t know whether it was the gin or the look in his eyes that made her knees feel like melting candles.

“I love your car, by the way,” she told him. “What kind is it?”

“An Auburn. Want to go for a ride sometime?”

“Why not?” She laughed, hoping Lamar wouldn’t hear her.

But her laugh wasn’t lost in the general hubbub. It ricocheted through a silence that had crept over the room. She looked up. Nella had planted herself in the doorway, surveying the scene icily. Drinks were set down, and cigarettes snubbed out. Hetty rolled her eyes at Garret and stood to leave.

Nella grappled onto her arm and pushed her down the hallway. “You know what this means, young lady.”

“I’m confined to my room again?”

“For the rest of the weekend.”

Oh, well, there’s still tonight,
Hetty told herself.

“And don’t think you’re staying for the rest of the party tonight. As soon as your sister’s coronation is over, it’s upstairs.”

A bitter taste stained Hetty’s mouth.
Ratted out again! Char did this on purpose so I’d miss the carnival’s jazz finale—my favorite!
She was about to protest, when the court jester sprang to her rescue. “Who was the ninny who nabbed Princess Nnamreh?” Lamar said to Nella.

She shot him a frown over her shoulder.

“ ‘Not I,’ said the queen. ‘I was dancing with the king,’ ” Lamar continued. “So what ninny nabbed Nnamreh?”

Nella turned to Lamar and chuckled in spite of herself.

“ ‘I’m afraid it was I,’ said the court jester. ‘To amuse her with ninniness. Forgive me, your highness.’ ” He kissed Nella’s hand.

Nella pretended to be annoyed, but Hetty could see the smile playing about her lips. “Back to court with you both.”

Monday morning, Hetty and Charlotte walked a few paces behind their mother as she swept through the long lobby of the Warwick Hotel. Nella’s departures were nothing short of theater. She descended through the various levels of the lobby as if stepping off the dais of a throne. The staff all greeted her by name as she passed the massive columns of black walnut. Next, she would cross the Saxony carpets of the solarium, where white wicker divans flickered in the shade of potted palms. Never one to open a door by herself, she waited at the main entrance until an attendant rushed over so she could step out and stand at the curving balconies of the terrace to see who might be disembarking from a chauffeured brougham. Finally, the descent down the staircase to the palatial porte cochere, where her own Packard town car waited at the top of a circular drive.

Hetty was back in favor after patiently serving a penance watched over by Lina. Lamar’s riddles hadn’t been sufficient to charm Nella out of her disapproval. Hetty had tried to remain cheerful during her confinement, but she simply wasn’t the type to sit around and do nothing. The very walls of the hotel had vibrated with dance music and, at one point, she’d looked out her window and seen revelers far below on the sidewalk, drifting into the park.

Now, as she followed her mother and sister out into the porte cochere, Hetty looked up from under a hat that buried her face to the brow. Light streaked the white ceiling: The tropic sun of South Texas blazed off a cream-colored sports car dripping with chrome. Behind the flashing windshield, raked at a forty-five-degree angle, she spotted Garret, his face cool under a Panama hat, his eyes secretive behind sun shades.

Joy irradiated Hetty at seeing him again, but she didn’t let it show on her face. She bowed like the lady she’d been raised to be: a faint smile on her lips, a gentle inclination of her head. Garret leaped out without opening the door and tipped his hat in their direction.

The door of their black Packard town car swiveled open and her father’s young Negro driver, Henry Picktown Waller, waited for them to step in.

Garret strode over. “Good morning, Mrs. Allen. I’d like to take this opportunity to present my card—Garret MacBride, ma’am.” He held out an ivory envelope. “My mother Arleen introduced me to the Welches, ma’am.”

Nella’s gloved hands shrank into fists, then one of them fluttered open. “Well . . . if Lockett received you, I suppose . . .”

Hetty walked down the driveway and circled Garret’s car, her fingertips sliding over the highly polished wax. She purred. The lines of the car flowed like warm cream in the mid-morning light. Garret came over.

“Aren’t you afraid King Eddie will kick you out again?” she asked.

“I’ll take my chances. I’ve been parked out here for two mornings now.”

“Not looking for
me?
Aren’t you sweet.”

“Just stubborn. Ready for the spin you were promised?”

Hetty jumped in and perched atop the back of the seat, posing as the dedicated hedonist like her idol Joan Crawford in
Our Modern Maidens.
She squealed with delight and longed to feel the cool spring air flowing over her as they drove. “Let’s go,” she told Garret, sliding down into the passenger seat.

Garret jumped in beside her, revved the engine, and edged past the Packard. “I’m riding with Mr. MacBride,” Hetty shouted, not giving Nella a chance to say no. They set out into the clear morning, in tandem, the Auburn leading the way. It had a luxurious leather bench, and Hetty had to squeeze rather close to Garret and move her long legs to one side so he could shift the gears. She said a prayer of thankfulness that she’d remembered to rouge her knees.

She brushed her hat off and whispered to Garret, “Can you ditch my mom?”

“Now don’t get me into trouble. I’m trying to get into her good graces.” He blipped the throttle. “But I could if I wanted to. When you open’er up, she’ll do eighty easy.” He tapped the dashboard, where a signed plaque certified that the car had been driven 100.2 miles per hour before shipment. He passed a couple of Model Ts along the wide boulevard of Main Street, sailing by the staring faces with that exotic hood ornament leading the way, a naked woman with wings flying before them.

“What brings a Northwesterner like you to the sultry subtropics?” Hetty spoke into the wind.

“Need you ask? Same thing that’s bringing thousands here. One magic little word.”

“Rhymes with royal?”

“How’d you know?”

“That’s all my father talks about.”

“My dad was in copper,” he told her. “But mining’s dead. Along with you and your cotton carnival. Yeah—we’re living in a new golden age, only it’s black gold this time. Why—look what happened at Spooltop.”

“Spindletop,” she laughed. “I’ll have to educate you about our history.”

Hetty could see he would need a guide to the local customs. But how could she possibly convey to an outsider what the time before the war meant to Texans? The tales from that era—tales that she grew up hearing—had grown so tall they dwelt on a plane only a little south of Mount Olympus. Her mother had spun them out like fairy stories, glimmering and strange. Once upon a time, she’d been told as a child, in the flat coastal land near the sea, there was something called a salt dome. Hetty had pictured a white mound like a pyramid with the blue Gulf in the distance. This salt dome hid fabulous treasure. From its depths, a black geyser shot into the sky. Spindletop erupted with one hundred thousand barrels of oil a day and took ten days to bring under control, wasting $90 million worth of petroleum. There was so much richness spewing from the earth, those early Texans squandered it.

Nella had painted these wildcatters as bigger than life, like Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan. They could hear oil flowing underground, she said. They learned how to drill through solid rock. They could tame the heart of the earth itself, bending the elements to their will. And, as a result of these superhuman powers, they grew hugely and suddenly rich.

“Only in America,” her father the banker used to say, “can a man own the mineral rights to the land. In other countries, these belong to the king.”

And so the risk takers had made their fortunes before the World War, then migrated to Houston to live like royalty. They built their mansions behind the palatial gates of Courtlandt Place, where magnolia grandiflora trees unfolded huge, glistening leaves over lush Saint Augustine lawns. They ran their empires from skyscrapers that looked like temples: the Esperson Building, the Splendora Tower, the Humble Oil Headquarters. They didn’t have names; they had initials. Or titles like “Chief” Rusk, Lamar’s father, founder of Splendora Oil. He’d been Chief so long, nobody remembered what his real name was.

“Spindletop?” Hetty glanced at Garret’s profile and sighed. “That was so long ago.”

“I don’t care. Another oil boom’s coming soon.”

Hetty couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Do you really believe that, kiddo?”

“I hope to tell you!”

“I’d like to believe it, but my dad keeps telling me all the booms are over.”

“He’s wrong!” he shouted over the revving of his motor as he outraced the long black car in their wake. “Land on that hill in Beaumont jumped overnight from ten dollars an acre to
one million dollars an acre?
It’ll happen again—why, did you know the other day Ford built nine thousand new Model As in one day? They all need gas!”

“You seem to be up on all the latest figures, kiddo,” Hetty said.

“Got to be.” He tore through the traffic lights at Polk and Dallas, then brushed her legs as he shifted gears to cruise more slowly along the busy stretch of Main.

Hetty looked behind them. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. She whipped her hair off her face and peeked at Garret out of the corner of her eye. “But hey—I notice you don’t drive a Model A.”

He smiled back. No, the speedster was his style—gliding like a yacht past the flivvers puttering through the currents of downtown traffic.

“Pull over here at Everitt-Buelow.” Garret grazed the curb, and Hetty stepped out onto the sidewalk. “What’s the little door in the side of your car for?”

“Golf clubs. I’d be glad to demonstrate.” He asked her where the best greens were.

“Here comes my mother,” Hetty said as the Packard pulled up behind them. She twisted her hat on so Nella wouldn’t notice how intently she was peering into the blue eyes that had emerged from behind Garret’s shades. She had to see this man again. “I like to go strolling in the park in the afternoons.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know. Before dinner. I’ll be in the sunken garden tomorrow.”

“It’s a date,” Garret said a little too loudly before he drove away.

In a moment, she heard Nella at her side chiding, “You didn’t make a date with that man, did you?”

“Oh, Mother! He gave me a ride in his car, that’s all.”

The new hat styles were so handy for avoiding eye contact.

They made their way toward the entrance of the shop, where they were greeted by Everitt-Buelow’s ubiquitous floorwalker, Ellison: “Mrs. Allen, Miss Allen, Miss Allen.” The institution of the floorwalker was one of the amenities of life for Old Houstonians. All the fashionable shops had one, a distinguished white gentleman whose job was to make shoppers feel coddled. Hetty just found his presence intrusive.
As if I can’t carry my own bags out to the car!
When Ellison opened the door for her on cue, she hesitated.

“Coming, dear?” Nella asked.

“I think I’ll walk over to the bank first. I’ll find you.”

“I thought we were going after lunch—together!” Charlotte said.

“I want to talk to Dad.”

“About what?”

“Mamá!” Hetty strode away.

As she walked over to Travis Street, it wasn’t hard to spot her destination. Last year, a mirage had materialized in the sky above Houston. Up there in the clouds, thirty-two stories high, a round Greek temple floated in the haze. Twelve ionic columns held it up, at the top of the soaring new Esperson Building. The skyscraper was so tall—taller than anything else in Texas—that a red beacon flashed at night atop a giant bronze tripod at its zenith so planes wouldn’t crash into it. Hetty crossed Travis and stood on the sidewalk at the base of the massive building, tipping her head back far enough so she could see past the brim of her cloche. The struts of the building shot straight up, broken only by encrustations of Italian Renaissance carvings. Even though it gave her vertigo, she loved this view. It reassured her that the modern age had finally arrived in Houston. The city now had a center, a place where the flat prairie could rise up and touch the heavens. “It’s our axis mundi,” Nella liked to say, “our new cathedral.” She steadied herself on a lamppost, then joined the stream of people flowing through the Travis Street entrance.