The Saint Louisans (32 page)

I didn't say anything. We stopped on Tennessee William's star in front of Blueberry Hill. In its corner window was a train set model of Delmar, lit up like the store displays I saw as a girl at Famous-Barr at Christmas time. It's set up to hawk a planned trolley for Delmar to Forest Park, that will of course revive the city, bring in business, yaddayaddayadda. Compact buildings and toy people, like the model in the lobby of U. City Hall I'd shown Jama. On an oblong track, a toy streetcar circled and circled. Named Desire?

“Jama,” I said. “Stop doing this.”

“You mean what I always do, don't you? Try to make a life for myself. Like, Pierce is the good son, with the brains who cleans his room. Dots his i's.” Jama's eyes hardened. “And I'm the wayward daughter. The fuck-up.”

My stomach muscles tightened. “Jama, I never thought of you that way.” I tried not to lie. “I've always been proud of you, but this is bad. It's not some elephant ride.”

She snarled a laugh. “I wish you could hear yourself. I didn't want to be a goddamned liberated doctor or savior. After all, that's your job. Fucking Supermom.”

My jaw tightened. “That's not how it's been, and you know it.”

“I gotta go.” Jama pulled her coat closer. It was early evening. You could smell snow in the air. Kids bumped past us on their way to bars, restaurants, and the art house cinema down the street. She walked off, then turned, how else? Dramatically. “You're just a jackal. Always a jackal.”

I took a deep breath as Jama marched back to her office. Faces glanced at the word like it was a curse. ‘Bitch' or ‘asshole' would have been ignored.

I chilled when I turned, seeing Rasheed step up, pretending to glance through a brochure of Corn Mother. His eyes showed a cutting pleasure in my wariness, then glanced at the 'Nduja.

“More food, Mrs. Bridger. Interesting.”

“Look. She's trying,” I said, albeit cautiously. “She's raising money.”

Rasheed's eyes were those of a patient tiger staking out the waterhole. “Money she will doubtless put into her movie. About the elephant.” He dropped the pamphlet. “Jama should have written one about cats.” He melted into the crowd. Shoes and boots soiled the brochure. Neon reflected on the pavement like a spilled rainbow.

It was a quick drive to the mansion. I felt guilty as hell neglecting Margot, and rushed past Rainer as he opened the door.

“She's wondered where you've been,” he called as I started up the stairs. “But I knew you were—”

I stopped and turned, ready for a whiff of sarcastic grape shot. “Up to no good?”

The door clicked as Rainer locked it. “Up to what you thought was some good.”

He looked away. It was a kind of victory for him. I went straight to Margot's bedroom. Soft music played on her bedside radio. She brightened when I came in, and I let my purse slump on the nearest table and checked her vitals before removing my coat.

“So sorry,” I said.

Margot gazed back. “So, is that a salami in your purse, or are you just happy to see me?” My pause made her quietly chuckle.

“Ike and I used to say things like that to each other. Silly, corny jokes. He picked up a lot from movies or flying buddies. Why do you have a salami? It smells like garlic.”

“It's 'Nduja. The mayor gave it to me. Don't ask.”

“Very well, but I will about the meeting. How did it go?”

“Not encouraging. He's sorry, but Vess—” My voice trailed off as she pointed to the bathroom. I helped her out of bed and got her robe.

“It's not Vess,” she sighed, “but Pierre and Terri. The money changers
in the temple.” Outside the window, fog drifted low, making everything the color of dirty pearl. Margot narrowed her eyes. “I know they hired a very nasty firm to challenge the will. They're absolute sharks on inheritance law.”

She closed the bathroom door and I took off my coat. She groaned from behind it. The toilet flushed and Margot reentered, sighing deep.

“Are you in pain?” I asked.

“I can stand it.” She waved and I took off her robe, helping her to slide back into bed.

“But the weakness. Everything is exhausting, even thinking.” She sighed. “At least remembering is … almost pain-free.”

I offered her a pill for nausea. She took it and leaned back, nodding to a soft melody on the radio. I think it was Rosemary Clooney.

“It sounds like something Ike and I danced to one night. Some hot spot in the county. Back then everything was so rural. Now it's all one big housing tract.” She sank back into the pillows. “Lanterns were lit up on a patio. You could smell hay from a farm across the road. Other barnyard scents, too, but everyone laughed about it. When you're young, there's always somewhere to escape to, isn't there?”

Margot closed her eyes.

“I dreamt about Ike. Then I was alone and falling. In my dreams, I always fall. Why is that, Lee? Please don't tell me it's Freudian.”

“It's common in dreaming,” I said as I smoothed her blankets. “Doc told me it's because we were primates, when we lived in trees. Climbed them, jumped from tree to tree. Our worst enemy was gravity. The primate brain grew larger to coordinate hand-to-eye movements, but there was always the fear of falling. When we dream of falling, it's that old fear in our subconscious coded into our minds.”

Margot was attentive, her eyes direct and unblinking.

“Doc believed this primal fear was eventually manifested in religion. He said almost all religions and mythologies have falling as a form of punishment. Lucifer thrown out of heaven by God, Icarus and the sun. We always fall from grace. Ancient sailors feared falling off the edge of the world. Rock A Bye Baby? ‘When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.' And so on and so forth.”

I almost bit my tongue at another seeping of erudition, rather tactless
when one considered the crucifix on the wall, but Margot folded her arms and puckered a smile.

“You know so much, Lee. So much wisdom. It does make some kind of sense.” She sighed. “Doc must have been quite a guy.”

“He was.”

“But there's almost a kind of thrill in falling. I remember Ike told me when he parachuted out of a plane, how you have this rush of fear but also joy speeding down, then you feel the pull of gravity when the parachute blossoms. Oh, Lee. Your father's eyes gleamed at that. At everything he told me about flying. Didn't Lindbergh feel the same way?”

“Lindy thought the threat of the chute not opening was part of the adventure, putting everything you had on the line.”

She looked at the ceiling. “Did you ever fear Ike would crash? I know I did.”

“No.” I shrugged. “I was little and he was like a superhero. My dad the pilot. He was indestructible.”

Margot's expression was dreamy. “What a family we would have been.”

I smiled back, remembering Ike as my father, the dutiful bread winner, coming home to play with me, crowning me queen of the cockpit. Like most fighter pilots I've known, their real love is the sky. Ike was no different. Men who served with him, when I talked to them some years later, said his eyes lit up when talk went to flight patterns, testing new jets, home and hearth immediately forgotten. It was Wolfe's
The Right Stuff
all over again. I sensed what Margot had been avoiding was now coming forth.

“Lee,” she said in whispered determination, “I haven't much time. It will start soon, and I'm prepared.” Her finger pointed to the rosary on her bed stand. “When I … started tracking you down, I was afraid, but not anymore.”

“No,” I said, “there's no reason to be afraid. I'm here.”

“Then, Lee—” She winced. I guided her hand to squeeze more painkiller, but she shook her head. “My first little baby. One I did a great wrong to.”

“Don't say that.”

“If you had been by my side all these years.” Her voice cracked. “Instead of those two. Lucas. My little Lucas …”

I rubbed her shoulder. “It's all right. Margot … Mom … please. I will be here with you.”

Margot sighed and nodded, appeased. “I don't want a nurse. I never did. I want my daughter. I want my baby.”

“You have her.” I kissed her forehead.

Margot nodded and sighed with sad approval. “Was it so hard to say that? To do it as your duty? As a nurse? As a daughter?”

I thought: Yes, it is hard to call you “Mother.” It's goddamned hard.

I stayed with Margot until eleven, then drove home in the fog. When I parked and trudged down the hall, it came to me that I couldn't love her, not that way, the way she wanted. Our relationship was fundamentally one of nurse and patient, and there were dark corners there.

Yul's meowing was heard twelve feet from the door. He always sensed my arrival and was no doubt famished, and whatever cat depression he'd had made him yearn for a lap to cozy in. What do they say? A dog sees his master as a pack leader, a cat a mother. I took out my key.

The door across the hall opened, and Kenyatta glowered, his troll-at-the-bridge mood. “Hey,” I muttered.

“You and me got to have words about Finicky Morris. Kept yowing all evening.”

“Okay, I'm sorry. He's hungry. I'm late, I suck as a tenant, and it'll never happen again.”

“Yeah, until next time. You know, lady, I'm trying to do improvs and Sylvester J. Pussycat messes up my rhythms.”

I sighed. “Oh, back off. I've had a long, pissy day.”

Ken's lips pursed as his eyes widened. “What? Helping to crank out pamphlets for that smartass kid of yours?”

“Have a nice day,” I glummed, then whisked into the door as Ken muttered. I dumped my purse on a chair and went for a can of Purrbytes (‘Give Your Best Friend These and You'll Hear the Purrin'), but Yul would have none of it, and already was attacking the 'Nduja. I thought the hell with it, sliced off a thick crescent and dumped it into his dish, then poured a deep glass of wine and sunk into my easy chair.

I kept the lights low and switched to the jazz station. A smooth ballad moved from the speakers like fingers gliding on polished stone. Why wouldn't
I accept Margot as my mother? The nurse thing? Yes, but I was never into high Momhood when Jama was around. She was trouble. It made me feel like a crappy mother. Maybe Childe Fantastical was the chablis-and-brie way of saying fuck-up.

I drained the bottle as Yul hopped on my lap and purred quite well without Purrbytes.

I stroked his fur, struck by its beauty. Its touch, and comfort. He sniffed my glass, flinched and glowered, wondering why I didn't imbibe milk like any rational species, and nestled in. Almost napped, then methodically began to groom. His body's warmth comforted, as did the wine. As did the jazz. I wanted a phone call. I wanted Pierce.

“Jackal,” I whispered.

Early in the morning, the phone rang. I blinked, fished for it, not turning on the messages because Margot might need help. “Hello?” I sighed.

“Nurse Lee.” It was Vess, confident and serene. “I know I woke you, and I'm sorry about that, but we need to talk.”

“Talk?” I echoed. “What now?”

“I think the sooner the better. It concerns a great many things. Meet me at Euclid. By the antique shop. You know which one, don't you? Near one of your favorite drinking spots.”

“How do you know?” I shook my head. “Of course you'd know, wouldn't you?”

“Be there in a half-hour. Alone.”

It was at the corner of Euclid where the bust of Tennessee Williams stood, our jaded poet laureate visible in the heavy fog. The neighborhood had its own dirty laundry. Back in the day, several discreet houses of ill repute were nearby. Two doors down once held The Mitzi Shop, an expensive women's dress shop where many of the local ladies of the evening bought wares, rubbing shoulders with matrons and daughters of the upper class. Its owner, Nellie Muench, had trouble follow her like a string of tin cans around the neck, going from stealing to kidnapping and babynapping. She was gracious, played piano to her husband's violincello, and eventually did
time. It was well Tom's bust was nearby. He was a guardian angel of the seedy, and was in the right place. Today, the corner had a sour smell, a vestige of the old St. Louis smog. Sometimes the Mississippi catches it. It came from all the factories, coal used for heating, the Mississippi Valley sponging up the smoke. This was the smell I remembered when I visited the city with Aunt Mary and Spud. In the old days, it was said St. Louis had moonlight at noon, a white ball barely breaking through the fog. In 1940, it was so bad it killed forty people.

T.S. Eliot wrote about this fog. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?”

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes / Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening …

St. Louis fog, but because Eliot turned fancy Englishman, he made it English. English fog is always tonier, my dear Watson.

I turned, and behind me, a shiny Taurus pulled up. Its mirrored window rolled down. Vess smiled.

“Lee. Good to see you out and about.” The passenger door opened. I stared, not moving.

“We can talk here.”

Vess's laugh was gentle, like an old blanket. “You been watching too many movies.”

I looked around, sighed, and got in. I pulled the door closed and off we went. Before Vess powered the window back up, Tom seemed to give me a bronze wink.

Vess's car turned north. We passed the stately churches of Holy Corners as I watched his pleasant but masking smile for some kind of clue. His eyes aimed out the window.

“Funny about this fog.” He shrugged as we turned and passed into the frontier of the ghetto: barred storefronts, boarded-up windows of gray and warped wood, old row houses wearing desperation like a penitent does his sackcloth. “My granddaddy, he used to sell coal from a wagon. You see, they'd burn pots of it to show it was high grade and flammable. So you'd get your money's worth.” He let this sink in, and continued.