Tiger Lillie (22 page)

I pick out the prettiest mug I’ve got, a delft blue-and-white pedestal mug. “I’ve got a job for you.”

“How much you pay?”

I fill the mug and set it in front of her. She takes a sip of it, black. I’m not surprised. “Eight bucks an hour?”

Her brows raise. “Oh!” Then her eyes narrow. “How about nine?”

“Eight-fifty.”

“You gotta deal.”

We shake.

I ask, “It’s none of my business but—”

“Minimum wage.”

“No!”

“Yes. He’s a cheap one, that rat.”

“What about your living quarters? Did you move out of your rooms there?”

“I’m at my mother’s house, temporarily.”

“Do you like being a housekeeper, Philly?”

“If I like the lady I work for.”

“What if that lady was a guy?”

She shrugs. “Don’t know.”

I make a mental note to call Gordon and inform him of his great need for a full-time lady like Philly. Oh gee, that’s going to be fun. A new marriage to a British, one-legged artist, with Philadelphia Kosmakos right there to render things even more surreal.

I tell her it’s Gordon she’d be working for, and then soon after, me as well.

She examines the kitchen. It’s basically clean, but of course, the small bit of counter to the left of the sink is relegated for a pile of junk mail and hair bobs. And there’s the obligatory napkin holder that’s void of napkins but stuffed full of more flyers and inserts and invoices. An iffy basket of bananas resides near the fridge. Just your regular kitchen mess. “I think I could do that. You don’t seem too particular. And after that Rawlins…”

That Rawlins.

“I can’t seem to think of his name either without
that
in front of it. It’s like he’s not really human.”

She picks up her coffee. “He’s a thing.”

“You lived there for years, Philly. Surely he’s got an Achilles heel? Other than the control thing.”

“I couldn’t find a thing. And believe me, I looked. Even jigged open the desk drawers. Nothing.”

“No kidding.”

“Yeah. You’d think there’d be
something
, wouldn’t you?”

“What about his mother? You ever have talks with her?”

“She’s not allowed there anymore either. She was bugging them about the baby not going to the doctor for checkups.”

Wow. Come to think of it, she hasn’t had tea with Mom in a while either. “Did she ever give you any insight into him?”

“Just once. She told me once, when I was ready to quit one of the dozens of times I threatened it, that Mr. McGovern, her husband, isn’t really Rawlins’s dad.”

“Really? Tacy’s never told me that.”

“Tacy doesn’t know. She said Rawlins’s real father died when Rawlins was little but was a good father. I’m not sure when she remarried, but obviously he adopted the boy.”

“Well, Mr. McGovern seemed nice enough at the wedding,” I say.

“Oh yeah, nice old guy. But always working. Still, better than no one, you know?”

“…”

“The man really has no excuse.”

We all want that, don’t we? We want terrible people to be that way for a reason, some cruel childhood, abuse, neglect. But isn’t always the way life goes. Some people view others as a commodity, pure and simple, and never look into another human’s eyes and see a real person with a life and a future and the right to at least be respected. Unless, of course, they act like Rawlins, and then they deserve nothing.

“How did he get religion?”

She shakes her head. “Beats me. That Alban Cole might have had something to do with that. They both think he’s a man of God, but how can he be? He’s a fruitcake.”

“Exactly.”

“I try to imagine him as having once been a sweet little baby, but I just can’t.”

I’m so proud of myself, I call Gordon on the phone. “Guess what I did?”

“With you, Lillie, I have no idea.”

Well, huh. I can’t imagine anybody sees me as the spontaneous type.

“I bought a cell phone today. For Tacy.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

“So she can call us without Lord Rawlins finding out.”

“Great idea.”

“I know. I can’t believe I thought of it. I’ve got my home number, office number, and cell number already programmed into it. I mailed it today. I know Tacy gets the mail. She always did at home, anyway. She always loved to get the mail.”

I’m so excited. I believe God gave me this idea so it’s going to work! It has to. Please God, let her still get the mail.

19

Tacy

I tried to kidnap my own child. God help me, I tried. I wish, now that I’m gone, somebody could find this out, that I wouldn’t be judged by how I appeared. I tried to save the family from worry; I tried to seem happy. But now that I’m going away they’re all going to wonder about me, wonder why I didn’t do anything before this.

The church woman left for the night, and I stole into the nursery at two a.m. Rawlins seemed to sleep most heavily around then. I dressed Hannah Grace, praying the entire time, Dear God, keep this child alive until I get her to someone who can help. Her wheezing was getting so much worse.

He locked the deadbolts by then, with his key, but I figured it out. I decided to go through the living room window and onto the front porch. One good thing about Pastor Cole was that he said security systems were a lack of trust in God.

I got the cell phone from Lillie, but only because the new guard didn’t know he shouldn’t leave the mail on the kitchen counter. Though I couldn’t get a moment alone to call her, I knew she’d come pick me up at a moment’s notice. I couldn’t risk calling inside the house, so I figured I’d grab Hannah Grace, walk a mile or two, and call then.

But she cried out. I was going through the window, and I banged her little head on the frame. Oh, God. I couldn’t believe I did that. I was trying to be so careful. And she cried out.

So I ran. I longed to comfort her and stop her crying, knowing how it would bring on an asthma attack. But I had to run. I was halfway through the pasture when he caught me, wrenching Hannah from my arms.

He hit me. Across the jaw. It stunned me and I lay there freezing in the field until morning, when he came walking toward me, backlit by a rising sun, like some dark angel. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave my baby in the hands of that monster.

The next day another guard came on duty for the nighttime. He sat on the porch, on the deck, walked the grounds, and watched. When one of the church women arrived for duty, he checked a list and let her inside the house.

I feel so light now though. I can see so much. There’s Rawlins, looking at me, his eyes growing round. And I see fear in his eyes for the first time ever. But I am looking down on him. That’s a first.

I wonder, are my eyes open in death, or did I close them on the roll? Do I stare lifeless at him now?

Lillie

Good-bye, April. This spring is flying by, and it’s a good thing my friends are all in the wedding-planning business because planning my own nuptials is akin to me modeling in boat shoes without falling off the runway. I found a pair of orange sandals yesterday. What a buy!

I’m sitting at David and Dad’s eating a grilled cheese, bacon, and tomato, on rye of course, going over the accounts for the Remington wedding.

I never knew.

Really. I mean, you watch those Hollywood entertainment shows, and they report the wedding of “Hollywood’s Hottest Couple,” tallied in at a million dollars or more.

I used to laugh. I used to think, “What kind of idiots would spend a million bucks on a wedding?”

Well, now I know. Not only does the day itself figure into the package, but several parties are planned beforehand, airfare galore, hotel bills galore, incidentals galore, and well, just conjure up the word “galore” and you might begin to grasp the true scope of a wedding of this magnitude.

Oh, the layers of this monstrous, beastly machine in the area of the guest list alone. Family and friends, of course, but don’t forget the agents, the record company execs, the managers, the crew, the Who’s Who of Galore. Lots of British rockers, musicians, and singers I’d have given my right arm to meet a year ago are today merely large annoyances.

Now I know why some entertainers choose those tiny weddings in obscure chapels in the middle of nowhere with a barefoot bride in a simple Vera Wang sheath. Because you are afforded but two choices in weddings like this: invite everybody or invite nobody.

Stan—the Kleenex, the Jell-O, the Band-Aid of rock-‘n’-roll—chose the former, and now, with the wedding next week, we’re all running around like raving roly-polies after the rock’s been lifted up. I wish somebody would touch me so I could curl up into a ball and lie still.

Every day, more and more invoices crowd the box. Cristoff received a one-hundred-thousand-dollar budget for the flowers alone and is almost in a state of euphoria. He’s using a lot of live shrubbery for the reception, gardenia bushes, and hibiscus for stage setting, and some tropical plants I don’t recall the names of because, let’s face it, I only have so much brain space to spare right now. And the table arrangements for the reception on the barge are low and sprawling so the guests can converse across the table. I never knew so many varieties of roses existed; however, Cristoff says we’re limited to varieties popular in the ’40s. He’s a bit disappointed he can’t do those soaring arrangements, but again, we’re tied to authenticity and I’m reasonably sure, after a great deal of research at the library, they weren’t yet dreamed of years ago. Gordon and I will plant the majority of the shrubs at the house so it isn’t a complete waste of money, or plant life for that matter. You should see the landscaping plans for the house. Magnificent. The Garden of Eden rises again!

Pleasance floats in the heavenlies as well. The silk for the bridesmaids’ gowns—from France, hand-embroidered, and eight-hundred dollars a yard—has been cut and sewn into gowns Edith Head would envy. Ursula’s ensemble steals a whole lot more than the breath. She chose a dusty ivory color for a more vintage look. Not only that, it sets off her coloring. One of the prominent Hollywood makeup artists will apply her makeup, so even dowdy Ursula and the word “stunning” will flawlessly intersect.

What heroics will be employed on Stan, however, remains to be seen. He will take a miracle, although he promised Ursula he wouldn’t wear the wig. The white dinner jacket will help too. Gordon’s wearing the same. I may not recognize any of the Remington boys cleaned up and spit-polished.

Peach has been scouring old cookbooks, and while he can’t possibly attend to all the food himself, he’s assembled a crew of ten local catering companies and is “large and in charge,” as Pleasance says.

Gert shares her sanity in generous helpings, which is probably the biggest, most important job of all. I want to be like Gert when I grow up.

I punch figures into my portable calculator, amazed a bank account capable of sustaining this kind of expenditure exists in the world. “Wow,” I breathe aloud.

“Good thing he got a good financial manager right away.”

I turn my head. “Hey, baby.”

Gordon kisses my cheek. “Here’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He pulls the chair out opposite me. An older African American woman stands beside him. “Lillie, this is Mildred LaRue, jazz singer extraordinaire and lead voice of The Star Spangled Jammers. And one of my dearest, closest of friends.”

Mildred shakes my hand as I stand to my feet. “This boy is way too much of somethin’, isn’t he? Still tryin’ to figure out what though.”

She gathers me into these long brown arms, skinny and strong as a heavy wire coat hanger. I hug her right back if only to keep the breath from being knocked out of me.

“Now then”—she pulls away—“sit back down and let me look at you. Gordon, you just feel free to sit over there with your ladylove. I want to see the two of you together, and will this David or this Dad be able to provide me a decent cup of coffee?”

Gordon kisses her cheek. “I’ll get you one, love.”

I say the inevitable. “Gordon’s told me so much about you.”

“And I feel like I already know you. That boy called me the first night he met you! Three o’clock in the morning! I said, ‘Son, you’ve flipped your lid!’”

“Sounds like Gordon.” The first night? Wow.

I examine him as he stands at the counter, chatting with the attendant as she rings up the coffee, smiling, so at ease and naturally charming. She’s blushing and I’m not jealous because I’m sure of him.

“He sure is easy to love,” I say.

Mildred reaches into her green clutch purse and pulls out a bleached-white, ironed handkerchief. “My late husband was like that. He was a dynamic preacher. We had a church down in the town of Mount Oak for years. Ever heard of that town?”

I shake my head.

“Anyways, I directed the music. Still sang jazz on the side. Much to the dismay of
some
, if you know what I’m talkin’ about.” She wipes moisture from her brow. So she’s the type that sweats. I like her already.

“Oh yes.”

“That’s right. You a preacher’s kid, aren’t you?”

“Well, a priest’s kid. But close enough.”

“Episcopalian.”

“Yep. We have our difficult members too.”

“Know me a little Episcopalian girl down where I live. Wears leather jackets and rides around in a red Beetle that’s been painted to look like a ladybug.”

“No kidding?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m not. One of those creative types.”

“My sister was like that.”

“Yep. Writes music. Draws. Plays umpteen instruments. I keep telling her to find her a man, but I think she may be bent backward, if you know what I’m saying. So she’s determined to just be married to Jesus.”

Too bad Tacy didn’t decide that. Cristoff did, and he’s far better off than she is. “Can’t fault her for that.”

“No. I say the same. I even introduced Gordon to her a couple of years ago. Nothing there. And Gordon’s too passionate to enter into anything but a whirlwind relationship.”

Whirlwind? Well, yes. I guess it has been. Never thought of it like that, but here we are, set to be married in a month, and we only met last October.

Very cool.

I say, “Well, when it’s right, there’s no sense in bumbling around. The first time I saw him, I knew there was something special. Especially after he just reached down, pulled up his pant leg, and showed me his prosthesis!”

Mildred laughs. “He did that to me, too.”

“What did I do?” Gordon sets down the coffee in front of Mildred.

“Your fake leg,” she says. “You aren’t exactly shy about it.”

He scrapes out the chair next to me and sits. “Why not? After having gone through all that pain, I deserve to wave the blasted thing over my head!”

I place my hand on his thigh, loving the warmth of him. God, I want to make love with him so badly. Just another month. Just another month. I squeeze and he looks over at me.

Yeah boy!

Gordon begins to pick away at a napkin. “I just believe in letting people know who you are right up front.”

We chitchat for a while. I really like Mildred. She is very dark and very thin, a living cigarillo, and her white hair, swirled up into a french twist, sits upon her like sculpted ash. She wears nothing but green, Gordon once told me. Except on stage with the Jammers, where it’s nothing but red, white, and blue.

She’s extremely orange, it’s plain to see.

“My Jesse David was in your face, like you, Gordon. You knew who he was a mile away.”

Later that day, after we dropped Mildred off at her hotel, I asked Gordon, “Am I like that? Can you tell who I am a mile away?”

“I could.”

“Good.” The shopfronts of Aliceanna Street slide by. We open the windows and sunroof of the Volvo. Gordon had dropped me off earlier and taken the car in to have a ten-disc CD player installed, which is just another example of his ways. How filled up I’ve become.

He’s playing Gert’s
Best of Bread
tape though. Go figure.

“By the way, I did something last night, Lillie.”

Gordon’s a night owl. “How late were you up?”

“Only until two.”

“Okay.”

“So anyway, love. I think we need to work on your self-esteem.”

A great bark of a laugh escapes me all on its own. The guttural equivalent of “good luck.”

“I do, sweetheart. What’s so funny about that?”

“Oh, Gordon. Please.”

“Anyway, look in the front pocket of my knapsack there by your feet. There’s a list in there. It’s on drawing paper.”

I push aside a doughy eraser and two pencils.

“See it, Lil? I had it laminated.”

A small spiral sketchpad, a Starbucks gift card, three different size bottle caps.

“It’s small. Wallet-size,” he says.

Still searching. “Gordon, I never know what to expect from you.”

“Good. Get it yet?”

“Yep. Here it is. It was stuck inside that little notebook.” I slide out what looks like a flimsy credit card.

“Okay. That’s for you to keep with you in your wallet.”

I start to read down a list of stellar qualities written impossibly small in his beautiful hand. Hard-working, Intuitive, Intelligent, Caring, blah, blah, blah, Pretty, Sparkling Eyes, blah, blah, blah, and I think that the saying is true, love really must be blind. And finally, the last one reads, A Really Nice Derrière.

Another laugh shoots out. “Gordon! A nice derrière? I’m overweight, for gosh sakes! My butt is
huge!
”