Magnolia City (9 page)

The light broke entirely too bright on the day of the game with hardly a cloud in the broad Texas sky to smudge edges a little. By noon, the sun had entirely inundated the courts at the Rusk mansion. Even under the arbor, it leaked through the wisteria vines and began to corrode the shade. Hetty could feel a headache pounding at the back of her eyes. She’d been so nervous this morning, she’d forgotten her sunglasses.

Once the match started, there was no sound but the tinkle of ice cubes in tall sweating glasses and the distant thud of tennis balls volleying back and forth. The men gathered in grim silence around the court to see who would take the lead. Glen Jr. kept score while Todd Eldridge tossed out fresh tennis balls when needed. The girls avoided the sun as much as possible. Winifred and Belinda stretched out on matching wicker chaises piled with pillows. Doris Verne had her legs drawn up on a wicker love seat deep in the shade. Two Carter girls and Diana Dorrance sat around one of the circular wrought iron tables. Hetty pulled the big brim of her straw hat closer to her face.

Winifred soon got bored with the game and started reading out loud from a heavy tome propped in her lap. Actually, she wasn’t reading; she was translating a sex manual that hadn’t been published in English. Hetty listened halfheartedly to her halting rendition, amused as always by the various roles Wini adopted for herself: sex expert, German translator, interpreter of European customs. She had been to Berlin with her family. She had witnessed cabarets and things that would be unthinkable in Houston, Texas. She cut her hair like a man and wore tailored golf slacks. She claimed to have read every marriage manual published since the war. Quoting Margaret Sanger on the importance of birth control, she had made herself rather notorious in the sheltered circles of No-Tsu-Oh. Winifred Ilse Neuhaus always had a group of giggling, blushing girls clustered around her over in some secluded corner as she lectured them on the facts of life. She explained what would happen on their wedding night. She told them bluntly what they had to do to keep a man happy. “But don’t be a doormat,” Wini counseled. “Demand your equal rights. Keep your maiden name when you marry. Join the League of Women Voters!”

“It should be the boys hearing this.” Belinda laughed as Wini read how a skillful husband worked to get his wife sexually aroused.
It’s like coaxing a flower to open,
Hetty thought.

The language became so explicit that Doris Verne covered her ears and said, “Honey child—stop!”

This, of course, egged Wini on all the more. She gave them the highlights of a section meant to teach the husband how to kiss amorously, then ended with a German phrase that she drew out suggestively before translating, “Or, in English, ‘the genital kiss’!”

The two Carter girls erupted in shrieks while Diana Dorrance shot Wini a dirty look.

“Is that what it really says?” Belinda glared at the book.

“I swear.
Der genitale Kuß,
” Wini read.

“Your husband’s supposed to kiss you down there?” Doris Verne asked. “Ohhh my god.”

Diana Dorrance made a face at Doris Verne, but Hetty didn’t share their disgust. She was glad to learn that something she’d wondered about actually had a name.

“You may stop reading now, thank you, ma’am,” Doris Verne said.

“What?” Wini assumed a quizzical look. “It’s the best way for him to get you lubricated.”

The Carter girls shrieked again and collapsed in each other’s arms, laughing. Glen Jr. shushed them, unable to concentrate on score keeping. Hetty turned her attention to the game again. Lamar had apparently just taken the first set. “Lamar!” Glen Jr. shouted out, and they all applauded politely. Garret rallied with some swift volleys close to the net and managed to win the second. As they moved into the third game out of five, Hetty could hardly stand to watch. The tennis court became a battleground upon which Lamar was determined to defend his honor and superiority. Tapping years of training, he unleashed a bombardment of ace serves that sent Garret lunging for the ball time after time and missing it. He was all over the court, sweating, while Lamar hardly moved from his command post behind the baseline.

At the break between the third and fourth set, Garret came up to her table to guzzle some iced tea. As he stripped his wet shirt off and wiped the sweat from his face, Hetty poured him a glass. He threw his head back to drink it, the Adam’s apple in his thick neck bobbing up and down as he swallowed. She let her eyes fall like fingers over his naked skin, so tanned and smooth that nothing stopped her as she glided over the round swelling of his chest, stopping for a moment to brush the brown nipples, like perfect little pebbles.
He’d make a good swimmer,
she thought. He had the kind of muscles that skim through water, long and lean. Hairless, too. Except in the armpit he flashed when he raised his drink. She found that thick tuft of black shocking in a way that entranced her, a wild fragrant herb in a manly garden usually hidden from view. She wondered if a wife was expected to give genital kisses to her husband, too. When he finished drinking, he slammed the glass down. “That bastard is beating me.”

She stood up and enveloped his head in her hat brim. She whispered in his ear, “Losing this match doesn’t mean losing me—relax.” She could smell the musky health of his sweat.

The two men swaggered back to the court. Hetty watched as Lamar, looking a little wan in the bright sunlight, served his smooth, high opening pass, then caught her breath as Garret leaped into the air to slam it into the court with a savage overhead.

The contest wasn’t helping her sort out her feelings about the two men at all. Lamar blazed with such confidence she felt herself pulled into orbit behind his comet’s tail of victory. If he invited her for a celebratory cruise around the bay tonight, she knew she would accept in spite of herself. She loved the luxury of the Rusk yacht, the freedom of the launch. On the other hand, she found Garret’s desperation touching. If he lost, she couldn’t leave him in limbo by himself. She would want to spend the evening assuring him that it didn’t matter.

During most of the fourth set, she hid behind her hat brim. She tried to distract herself by listening to what Wini was reading out loud again over the objections of Diana and Doris Verne, how a modern woman might return the genital kiss.

I knew it! I want to do that to Garret!
Hetty thought, amid the uproar this latest erotic tidbit created among the girls. They all seemed to be talking at once, shouting their objections to the whole idea. “No, no, no! Oh, no, oh, no!” Diana Dorrance spoke out the loudest: “You’d never get me to kiss a boy down there, kiddo, unh-unh.”

“No, ma’am,” Doris Verne agreed.

“But you girls say you want equal opportunities,” Wini said. “Well, here’s your chance!” She read again about how today’s woman has earned the right to take a more active role in every aspect of lovemaking and not just be the toy of an amorous man. Wini looked up and cast them a coy glance. “Just think of it as our sexual suffrage, girls.”

Belinda admitted that she liked that idea, and Hetty was going to agree with her, when a commotion from the tennis court drew her back to the game. The men were chanting Lamar’s name. He only had to take one more set to be the champion. Every groan and cheer made Hetty wince. She listened to the thud of balls back and forth, but couldn’t watch. The contest dragged on and on, making Hetty’s headache worse. She felt faint in the sticky heat. Then she saw Winifred jump up from the lounge screaming, the sex book falling to the floor.
Lamar had won.

She looked out at the court, blinded by the high sun and the nakedness of Garret’s defeat. He didn’t have Lamar’s polish; he didn’t know how to finesse things with a little humor, a worldly reference or two. He paced on his side of the net, his abdomen rising and falling rapidly, keeping his head down as Glen and Todd circled Lamar, whooping.

Tuggie sent the kitchen staff out with silver trays bearing cut glass pitchers of her famous iced tea. Everyone gathered at the wrought iron tables under the arbor and toasted the winner. Only Garret remained on the other side of the netting that curtained the court. Hetty wanted to go to him, walk hand in hand away through the spreading sago palms. Then Lamar remembered his manners and beckoned him over with a glass of iced tea. He tugged his white shirt back on and ambled their way.

Lamar shook his hand, then handed him the drink. “I guess you don’t get a lot of chances to play tennis living over there in the Heights.”

“You live in the Heights?” Belinda asked.

Garret nodded.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who lives in the Heights,” said Diana Dorrance.

Garret sipped his tea. “I’m not home that much.”

“So you live in your car?”

“Cars,” Garret said.

“You know, kiddo, that Auburn of yours, that’s not a real sports car.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Not really. Now you take my Bearcat—that’s a real sports car. Eight cylinders, real powerful—clean as a whistle.”

Hetty didn’t think Garret’s cheeks could get any redder, but they did. “Look here,
kiddo,
that’s not the only car I own, you know. I drive it because Hetty likes it. She said it’s the most beautiful car she’s ever seen. Didn’t you say that, honey?”

“Well . . . yes, I did.”

“You did? More beautiful than my Bearcat?”

“I just like the tail on it—but why are you boys arguing over cars?” she said to cut the tension. “Don’t you think that’s a little silly?”

“You’re right, Het,” Lamar said. “Let’s talk about something serious. How about THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.”

“Hear, hear,” shouted Todd.

“What parties are y’all going to?” Lamar asked. One by one, the girls listed the events they planned to attend. Then the turn came around to Lamar. Hetty felt on edge again; she hadn’t told Garret about Lamar’s invitation. “I have an important announcement to make. Miss Esther Allen has agreed to accompany me to Ima Hogg’s reception at Bayou Bend Saturday night.”

The girls all shrilled in envy, except for Belinda who pouted on the chaise. “I hate you.”

Garret threw Hetty a sullen glance. She felt a stab of anger at Lamar for putting her in such a bind. She didn’t want to sully his triumph on the tennis court by branding him a liar in front of all their friends, but resented any man who trespassed on her freedom. She’d have to find a way to convince Garret of the truth later. For now, she was noncommittal. “I’ve always wanted to go to Bayou Bend,” was all she’d say.

“Mac?” Lamar said. “What are your plans?”

“It all sounds kind of boring to me. I’ve got a better idea. This coming Friday I’ll take all of you to something really democratic—a Black and Tan.”

“A Black and Tan?” Lamar said. “I’m afraid none of us know what that is, kiddo.”

“That’s where white people visit a club for coloreds.” Mac’s offer was met with a shocked silence. “For the jazz. Anybody game?”

“I wouldn’t think of taking a white girl to a place like that. But I wouldn’t think of driving an Auburn, either. I guess that’s the difference between me and you, Mac.”

“I guess. Any of you kids change your mind, meet me at the Warwick Friday at eight p.m.” He brushed by the hanging wisteria and left. Hetty could see him waiting for her on the other side of the clipped hedges. She pulled Lamar aside.

“I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Maybe now you’ll realize how serious I am.” His face darted under her hat brim, and he kissed her with his tongue, knowing Garret was watching. “Stay with me tonight,” he urged, hugging her close. She threw her head back and tried to decide which man to follow. She glanced up and caught a glimpse of the dormer windows in the attic staring out with their vacant eyes. For a moment, she thought she saw a face reflected there, the face of a young girl with her left eye red and swollen.
Then she remembered
. She had seen Lamar like this once before. When they were children. Lamar had been cheating as usual at Chinese checkers one Saturday, rewriting the rules so he could win. She usually forgave him his cheating but didn’t feel like giving in that time. He’d reached for his blue steel barrel gun with the cork bullets. It had come with a shooting gallery where black crows were the targets. He loaded it and began firing the corks at her until one hit her in the eye and left it bruised. That had sent her stumbling down the stairs screaming for Tuggie, who’d put ice on it.

She pulled away from his embrace. “Not tonight,” she heard herself saying.

The following Monday afternoon, Hetty was picking out the right dress to wear to the Black and Tan when Lina appeared in her doorway. “Your mother would like to talk to you,
m’ija
.”

“Uh-oh,” Hetty said and followed her out into the drawing room where she could smell afternoon tea brewing. It was Mah-jongg Monday. Lockett Welch was ensconced in an armchair chattering away with Nella. Lina slunk into the kitchen.

“Yes, Mamá?”

“Would you like a cup of Darjeeling—and you haven’t said hello to Lockett.”

“Hey there, Lockett. How was mah-jongg? Did Mamá beat the pearls off you as usual?”

“Don’t be rude, dear,” Nella came back at her. “The truth is, Lockett was so full of startling revelations today, I could hardly concentrate on my tiles.”

“How else can I steal tiles from you?” Lockett dropped another cube of sugar into her tea. “Nella Ardra Allen—the mah-jongg queen of the South. But I confess, the Welch grapevine was buzzing a bit more than usual this afternoon.” She pivoted her broad hips until she was perched on the edge of her chair, eyes locked on Hetty. Mounds of handkerchief-pointed flounces made up her dress, with a huge velvet bow riding on her left hip.

“Did you want a cup, Esther? You never answered me,” Nella asked.

“Sure.” Hetty settled into her favorite spot on the divan and tucked her skirt under her. Several sounds filled the silence that followed: the trickle of hot Darjeeling tea being poured, the tinkle of a silver spoon against a thin china cup, Lockett clearing her throat several times to make an announcement. Nella brought the steaming tea over and set it down on a Macassar ebony side table.