Visible Empire, page 16
“Can I pick it up?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “It’s still drying. Better to keep it pressed another week or two.”
She nodded. The kitchen timer buzzed.
“Oh,” she said. “The biscuits. Have a seat, will you? We’ll eat and then I’ll show you the piano.”
Over breakfast, she asked him about flower pressing, where he’d learned how, who had taught him. He blushed whenever she asked him not to call her “ma’am,” and she observed his smile—it was sweet, with none of the mischief of Robert’s lips or, say, the trumpeter’s so many years ago in London—with a tinge of melancholia.
In the music room, after biscuits and eggs, they sat side by side at the piano. She raised the fallboard, but he made no move to touch the keys. On the rack was a sheet of Tchaikovsky.
“I’ve only ever played an organ,” he said.
“So you don’t know pedals.”
He shook his head.
“This has eighty-eight keys and they’re weighted,” she said. “The organ is shorter, yes?”
“Yes,” he said.
“The piano is more fun. Hold out your hands.”
He held them out, above the keys, in a perfectly neutral curved position. He was a natural. There was no doubt about it.
“See?” she said. “These will fit your fingers better. The keys are larger. You play by heart? Here. Start here.” She rested her own hands on top of his and moved them to the C position.
He was about to play; she could tell: he straightened his fingers and the knuckles cracked. But as soon as his fingertips made contact with the ivory, he pulled them away and moved them instead to either knee. He turned to face her.
“Are you one of them?”
“Will you not play?” she said.
“You are. Aren’t you?”
“One of whom?”
“The orphans.”
Lily felt her cheeks turning warm. “Where did you get that word?”
“It’s what they call you in the papers and on the television.”
“I’m a grownup,” she said. Why did she feel defensive? He wasn’t wrong. But she’d not wanted to talk about herself this morning. She’d not wanted to think about what she’d lost or what had been taken away from her. She wanted to hear music. She wanted to hear about somebody else’s life for a change—somebody whose experiences and societal expectations were unilaterally different from hers. “And, anyway, grownups can’t be orphans.” But the truth was she felt very much like an orphan at that moment and more like a child than a grownup.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve upset you.”
“No,” she said. “Well, yes, but also no. I’m upset with the situation—the injustice of it all. I’m not upset with you. Yes. I am one of them. Though to be completely accurate, we aren’t all orphans. Not everyone lost both parents. Many of us lost only mothers. I lost both. And several friends.”
“I can’t imagine.” He looked down at the keys when he said this.
“That’s because it’s unimaginable,” she said. Out the window, a woodpecker started up.
“Do you still want me to play?” he said.
“Very much,” she said.
From his knees, he raised his hands. Again their position was perfect.
He turned his chin in her direction and then said, not a question but a statement, “You like Don Shirley.”
Before she could catch her breath or wrap her mind about what he’d said and how he’d said it—was she imagining things or had his voice dropped just slightly? and was it a trick of the morning sunlight or was there a quality of mischievousness to his profile she’d not previously detected?—his fingers met the keys and suddenly she was listening to an impromptu version of “The Nearness of You.” It was as though—it truly was—as though Don Shirley himself were there in the room, playing just for Lily.
What Lily thought about that night, a single sheet atop her body, draped high and falling at a ridiculous angle because of her belly, was not, as she expected, Piedmont or the way, late into the afternoon, outside on the front porch, several cans of beers divided between them, several albums’ worth of jazz and blues played and discussed, or the way that she’d laced her fingers between his. Nor did she think about the way he’d lowered his gaze, then his head, then—his head still lowered—raised his eyes so that he could watch her and she could watch him, watch his eyes as she moved her fingers up and down between his, the feeling as sensual as any she’d ever known. They might well have been naked for the intense pang of intimacy it had triggered throughout her body. For many years to come, often at night and especially in the summer, she would think about that day, that afternoon, that particular and unexpected moment. But on the night of, she did not.
On the night of, she thought of Helen Seydel, lovely Helen Seydel. Since the crash, Lily had been successful in her efforts not to think of the letters Helen had sent from Paris, from Florence. Helen’s husband had left her the year before; she’d been blindsided by his departure. Her marriage, Helen had believed, was one of the good ones. But he’d left, and poor stupid Lily had had the audacity to pity her. She’d had the audacity to think, Poor Helen, what did you expect? Everyone knew but you . . . When Helen booked the trip to Paris alone, Lily had made fun behind her back, as if painting classes and a trip to the Louvre would solve any of Helen’s problems. As recently as last month, Lily hadn’t felt glad for her friend; she’d felt sorry. I am ready to begin again, Helen had written, and Lily had decided that her friend was worse off than before, delusional and unprepared for her life back home as a spinster. No, Lily had not wanted to think about Helen and for good reason.
But Helen’s face was in LIFE magazine, practically the centerfold, which had turned up in the day’s stack of mail, which Lily had made the mistake of sorting through just before bed, after Piedmont, sleepy and drunk, had finally said good night. Now the issue was lying on the floor next to the pullout in Robert’s office. She’d been completely caught off-guard by it. There was a photograph of one of Helen’s self-portraits—who’d let the cameramen into her house? who’d given them access to Helen’s studio?—a beautiful self-portrait that did duty to the face in that it caught less the actual features and more the spirit of the woman. Lily had seen that portrait before; had been in the very same room where the cameramen must have stood; had seen her artist’s supplies; had derided their existence . . . But now, in the pages of LIFE, those tubes of paint and well-used brushes appeared so obviously full of vitality, of promise. The expression of the self-portrait seemed almost to predict the artist’s early demise. Anyone looking at that mouth, its acceptance, its tacit acquiescence to what will and must be—anyone looking also at those eyes, their determination to reject sadness and disappointment—anyone would have had the same terrifying thought as Lily: that she knew, she knew, of course she knew.
And so it was Helen who Lily thought about on the night she first held hands with Piedmont. And for a little while, it was also her parents. And for a little while after that, it was the whole lot of them—Agatha’s parents and Jane’s and Polly’s and Martha’s—it was the entire 130. How could she not think of them?
Next to the portrait of Helen there’d been the photograph of the wing, its edge a row of jagged burnt teeth. That image! If only they understood the effects of that image on those who’d lost someone . . . But they mustn’t have known. They mustn’t have understood. Because if they had—the newspapers, the television stations—if they had known, then they’d have never shown it in the first place. They’d have burned it the moment it was taken, burned it like the plane and all the people inside.
Coleman
For Coleman, 1962 would always be the year of ants. Not the year of the crash—his parents’ or his own. Not the year of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” or the seven-hour, 22-inning game between New York and Detroit. It wouldn’t be the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis or the year of Johnny Carson. It wouldn’t even be the year of Robert Tucker or the year he lost, after settling out of court, close to 50 percent of an inheritance he’d only just gotten his hands on, including the beloved Gauguin, which was stolen before he could sell it. Instead, for all time, he would remember that year, that summer in particular, as the summer of ants.
They came in late April, before his parents had even left for Europe. His mother stopped by with a check. It was the last one, she’d told him. His father had found out, was livid. “I need to respect him,” she said. “Until you change your ways, Claude’s done helping. You’re too old to be living like this. It’s . . .”
Disgraceful was the word she didn’t say. She didn’t need to. They both knew. He’d taken the check. Perhaps she had hoped he wouldn’t: she was always so grotesquely hopeful. “Next time, next time, next time.” It was practically a refrain. Next time, your father will be less angry. Next time, he won’t pull my arm like that. Next time, I’ll remember no chives in the salad dressing. Next time, you won’t wet the bed and so he won’t . . . Well, let’s not say he hit you, Cole. Let’s not say anything so dire as that. He was too rough. You’re right. But let’s not use words we don’t mean and anyway next time . . .
He took the check. On her way out—the last time he would see her, though the flight out was close to a month away—she’d stopped. She knelt to inspect the gap between the front door’s frame and the carpet. She didn’t let her stockinged knee touch the floor. She leaned in closer, then shook her head. Very carefully, with so much grace it made him want to topple her, a direct hit into her shoulder with the heel of his shoe, she stood up. She wiped her hands, one onto the other. “Ants,” she said.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“If you don’t take care of them, there will be thousands by the end of summer.”
“Thank you, Mother.” He had always called her Mother.
That was in April.
By early June, by the time his parents were dead, the ants were everywhere. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d sense the floor was moving. He’d creep closer and discover not the floor, but a steady parade of tiny black ants. When he found them inching across the tile on the first-floor bathroom, he scoured the room with bleach himself. When, several days later, he discovered a slow line of them making their way across the windowsill of the master bedroom, he dropped what he’d been doing and drove straight to the hardware store. “Give me everything,” he’d said. “I need a Hiroshima.” The couple behind the counter—husband and wife, Greek—hadn’t cracked a smile. But they had given him a bottle of something with a frighteningly strong odor. For several days, the ants were gone. He was free of them.
But then, at a traffic light in Buckhead in mid-June—a week or so after news of the crash—he saw a single ant tiptoeing across the outside of the windshield. He watched it make its steady way across the glass. Then he looked back to the place where he’d first spotted it, on the other side of the glass from the rearview mirror. There was another one. He watched this one too. When it was finally out of sight, he looked again at the place on the windshield just beyond the rearview. There, again, was another.
A car behind him honked. The light had turned from red to green. He lurched forward, made it through the intersection, then pulled over and parked not quite parallel with the curb. He looked again, but the ants—for the time being—were gone. What he noticed instead was a well-dressed man stumbling down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. He checked his watch. It was 10 a.m. and a Wednesday. The man was drunk. Coleman smiled. He knew this man. This man was an editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. This man was a friend. This man was someone with whom Coleman could get rip-roaring wasted and not afterward have to worry about consequences or judgments. This man was surely as big a fuck-up as he. This man was Robert Tucker!
He’d gotten out of his Thunderbird and followed him promptly into a bar.
Robert
“Fine,” said Robert. “I admit it. I’m worried about her.”
“Ha,” said Coleman. “I knew it.”
They were sitting at a back booth in a dirty yellow diner on Peachtree Battle, drinking strawberry milkshakes. For the past hour, Robert had been trying to convince Coleman it was time to retrieve the Thunderbird, which was parked at the top of the driveway of the house on Forrest Way.
“I thought you didn’t want her to see you like this.”
“I haven’t had a drink in days.”
“That can’t be accurate. Can it?”
“I want to go home.”
“What makes you think she’ll take you back?”
It was a good question, one Robert had been mulling over. She would take him back because she still loved him, not because he deserved her. She would take him back because the baby was his. She would take him back because she missed the way he sometimes sidled up from behind and nibbled on her neck while she sliced vegetables for dinner. She wouldn’t take him back because
he was cowardly
he was unfaithful
he was selfish
he was unreliable
he was . . . himself.
He thought of an aphorism he’d overheard years earlier, before he’d become someone’s husband and someone else’s lover: “Wherever you go, there you are.” That seemed precisely to be Robert’s problem. Wherever he went, there he was. And lately, there was his scalawag of a friend as well.
“Plus,” Coleman was saying, “with whatever inheritance she has coming her way—Do you know the number? Ballpark? Ignore me. The question is gauche. Unless you want to spill? No? My point being that she has even less incentive to take you back. Am I wrong? She’s likely being wined and dined by Atlanta’s finest, preggers or no.”
“I’m not above slugging you,” said Robert. “Lily isn’t disloyal. She’s incapable.”
“Anyone is capable. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
It surprised Robert that he’d failed to consider her fortune. Either this lack of consideration meant true love—that he wasn’t and had never been in it for the money—or it meant he was a rube and a total loser and had never been able to see the whole picture or more of the picture than what included him. Possibly it meant all of the above.
“She can have the Thunderbird,” Coleman said. “Consider it a baby gift.”
“I thought you loved that car,” Robert said. “At least let me help you get it back. I owe you that.”
“I’ll buy a new one. What’s money?”
“That’s the point,” said Robert. He sounded desperate. He felt desperate. He hated that he was pleading with P. T. Coleman of all people. “You have money. It’s your responsibility to find value elsewhere.”
“You’re encouraging me to find value in sentiment?”
“I’m encouraging you to get back the Thunderbird, and I’m offering my services.”
“In Honduras, for fun, I once fished for tarantulas off the deck of my bungalow using a ball of yarn, a piece of gum, and whatever bug was unlucky enough to get stuck to the end of the line. Relevance? I’ve never needed someone else’s services. But if you want to make an ass of yourself in front of your wife and if you need my services, just ask. You don’t have to win me over with deception. Do a line with me.” Coleman flipped a metal napkin dispenser on its side and poured out a small pile of cocaine.
“I’m off that stuff. I told you.”
“More for me,” said Coleman. He put his face to the metal surface.
“Wipe your nose,” said Robert.
Coleman ran his nose across his sleeve. “Ready when you are,” he said.
Twenty minutes later they were parked behind the giant magnolia across the street from the house on Forrest Way, and Coleman couldn’t stop laughing. The Tudor was situated on top of a hill, set back from the street by about two hundred yards. At the curb was the mailbox and a sprinkling of tulips. Closer to the house, on either side of the drive, there were smatterings of bright white hydrangea bushes. Behind these were more magnolias and a handful of dogwoods, which lined the interior of the property. Their realtor had warned of blossoms in the pool in the summertime. “The water will never get warm in shade like this, and you won’t go a day without skimming the top.” But both Lily and Robert had liked the idea of cold water in summer. And on the day when they looked at the house, there’d been blossoms covering the surface and neither had minded. “It’s romantic,” Lily had said, linking her arm with Robert’s. The realtor had shaken his head.
Coleman was laughing, though, not because of the landscaping but because of what they were looking at on the front porch. There, in plain sight, in broad daylight, under the hard glare of the Georgia sun, was Lily. And there, also in plain sight, also in broad daylight, also under the hard glare of the Georgia sun, was the Negro kid they’d paid to drive them to the airfield in Athens and then return the Thunderbird to Coleman’s driveway, an assignment he’d clearly failed to complete. The two of them were drinking beers and yammering away like old friends.
“Goddamn,” said Coleman, catching his breath. “That is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen crazy. I’ve watched a pygmy eat the umbilical cord from a giraffe’s calf.” Coleman waited a beat, then added, “While it was still connected.”
