Authors: Lisa Howorth
When Mann and Mary Byrd returned to the house, the sitter had
Emergency
911
on and didn’t want to stop watching long enough to be walked home. “Some guys were scuba diving and a pipe fell on one guy’s air hose. His girlfriend saved him. He has a cool Rolex,” she said.
“That’s why she wanted to save him,” said Mann. “Gold diggers, all of you.” The sitter eyed him suspiciously for a second and turned back to the TV.
“Let me cook something quick, M’Byrd. I’m vanquished,” Mann said.
Mary Byrd looked around the counter for the science unfair proposals that of course weren’t there. She called the Pink Palace looking for Charles but he hadn’t come in yet. She asked the Palace to give him the message that they couldn’t make it and were home, then she went upstairs to check on the children. Charles wasn’t going to be happy with her.
William was asleep in his bed, hair still damp from his shower. She sniffed it and didn’t smell shampoo, so he’d just faked a hair-washing. He’d better not get the damn cooties again.
Mouth slightly open, he lay on his back with a few of his favorite gadgets and models arranged by his head: pocket knife, binoculars, and a small model war plane still in his hand. Beside him, open, was
Jane’s Guide to Fighting Aircraft
. Mary Byrd knew he had conked out—no one conked out like little boys—midflight, on some dangerous, epic bombing mission to Nagasaki or Dresden or Pearl Harbor. He didn’t favor Japs or Germans, of course, but he loved their planes and tanks. His favorite, the one in his hand, was a little Russian Seagull, a plane so primitive that at Stalingrad it had flown so low and slow that Messerschmitts couldn’t hit them. Peeking from under his pillow were his tanks: a German Mark VI Tiger, and a Shturmovik that William could tell you had destroyed the Third, Ninth, and Seventeenth Panzer divisions at the Battle of Kursk. Where the hell was Kursk? William could go straight to the huge world map on his wall and show you.
For a minute Mary Byrd imagined William dead, and shuddered. She kissed him, and, knowing he would knock his stuff to the floor in the night, she moved it all to the bedside table, picking up some empty Skittles boxes and throwing them in his Ninja Turtles trash can.
Eliza was still awake reading a trashy teenage novel that no doubt involved dope in lockers, heinous, clueless parents, and lots of near-sex. Mary Byrd lay down beside her. Her bed was so comfortable and poofy. There were about six inches of down underneath the sheets and comforter, and two feet of down on top, and several big, squishy pillows piled at the head.
“
Mom
.” Eliza protested. “Why are you home?”
“Don’t read that junk, please,” said Mary Byrd. “Read something classic or uplifting.” She wound a piece of Eliza’s damp blonde hair around her finger.
Eliza jerked her head away. “Like what? The
Weekly World News
that you always look at at the JFC?”
“I have to keep up with what’s going on in the world, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” said Eliza, “Like what Bat Boy and Misbehavin and that guy Nostrildamus are up to?”
“Exactly. Let’s see your hands.” Mary Byrd put her daughter’s hand against her own, remembering Eliza as a new baby and her hands that had looked like tiny stars when she was full and happy, and when she was hungry—practically always—had been knotty little fists pressed up against her cheeks, those huge chipmunk pouches and that precious potato head, like Charles’s. She was surprised that Eliza had prettied up so much.
“My nails are
clean
,” Eliza protested.
Mary Byrd ignored her. “Wow. Your fingers are as long as mine already. That means you’re creative. You’ll be a pianist or a painter, I’ll bet.”
“A surgeon. Like Big William. Who cares about creative?” she sniffed. “Mom,
get up.
”
“I care. Dad cares,” said Mary Byrd. From downstairs came the smell of hot olive oil and garlic. “You go to sleep.”
“Why are you home? Where’s Dad?” Eliza asked.
“Ed had to take some pictures, and we decided not to eat out, so I guess Dad is on his way home.”
“Why do you and Daddy hang around with him anyway? He’s always drunk and creepy and says mean things to Mann.”
“Drunk and creepy? Ed? You can’t mean that.” They both laughed.
“No, for real,” said Eliza.
“You know why. He’s a really great photographer, one of the most famous in the world, and Dad sells a lot of his work.”
“Yeah, but what good is being famous if you don’t know how to act?” asked Eliza.
“That’s a good question. But when Ed’s not drunk and acting up, he is really, really smart and interesting and, I swear, charming.”
“
Huh
.”
“Maybe brilliant people
should
get cut a little slack, do you think?”
“Nope. Liddie wouldn’t have liked him.”
“Probably not. But Liddie would have tolerated him and been polite to him anyway, right?”
“Maybe. But she wouldn’t
hang around
with him. And she would have said something like, ‘He is such a
bore.
Have you
evah
?’” Eliza was great at imitating her grandmother. They laughed again.
“But I bet he would straighten up around someone like Liddie and be the perfect gentleman. She had that effect on people.”
“Why don’t
you
have that effect on people, Mom?”
“Not cut from the same cloth, I guess. Liddie’s silk, and I’m . . .”
“Polyester,” said Eliza.
“Thanks, pal. I was going to say denim, at least.”
“Whatever.”
Mary Byrd wondered if she should tell Eliza about Evagreen—she might hear about it at school in the morning—but decided against it. She reluctantly got off the bed and bent and kissed Eliza’s face seven times, all over. Eliza narrowed her eyes and scrutinized her mother.
“Madison said her mom saw you kissing someone.”
Mary Byrd stiffened a little. “Oh yeah? Who was that?”
“Some old man. One of those guys of Dad’s.”
“Pfft. I kiss those guys all the time. Is there a law against
kissing
? Is that the eleventh commandment or something?
Thou shalt not kiss?”
“A
gross
kiss.”
“If it was one of Dad’s guys, I was probably giving him CPR. And besides, the Durthes are Church of God or Church of Christ or one of those religions that believe that
dancing
is a sin, for god’s sake.”
Eliza was silent.
Mary Byrd said, “Look, sometimes you just
have
to kiss people. Some people are needy.”
“On the lips?”
“Oh, jeez, Eliza. Yes, on the lips. Lots of people kiss on the lips. Liddie and Evelyn and Big William kissed on the lips. Europeans kiss on the lips. Big deal.
Dad
kisses people all the time.”
Eliza said, “Yeah, Dad kisses
Mann
.”
This gave Mary Byrd pause and she tried to read her daughter’s face. Kidding? Charles and Mann often joked that they were a couple, and that it took both of them to be a husband to Mary Byrd. Then she said lightly, “Exactly. Ha ha. Be sure to tell Madison
that
. Stop making things up to worry about.”
“Well, stop doing embarrassing things!” Eliza practically shouted. “Stop wearing that stupid FUPA skirt!””
“God, you’re insane!” She couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s wrong with this skirt? What’s FUPA mean?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Eliza said. “Why don’t you ask one of your
supposedly cool
friends?”
“Okay, I will. Now go to sleep before I call Whitfield to come get you.”
“Hmph. They need to come get
you
.”
“Fine. At least then I might find some people down there who’ll be nice to me for a change.”
“Yeah,” said Eliza viciously. “You might find some slobbery retards and head-banger psychos you can kiss all the time, too.”
“O-kay!” Mary Byrd turned to go, saying cheerfully, “Don’t say ‘retards.’ Night-night, Miss Mean. Seepy-seep!” She turned off the light and closed the door. “Love you!” she called.
Eliza yelled back, “Yeah,
right
!”
Mary Byrd understood that possibly her most important function as a mother was to be a punching bag. Fine. Who else would Eliza take her hormone-driven insecurities and rage out on? Well, William, of course. Poor little guy.
When Mary Byrd got to the stairs, Eliza jerked open her door and said, “I already know about Evagreen. Roderick’s sister works in Mr. Barksdales’s office and the twins told me.” Her lovely face looked vulnerable now.
“Okay,” Mary Byrd said tiredly, and sadly. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Mary Byrd thought she knew about children, about taking care of them, anyway—the nuts and bolts. She’d taken care of her brothers since she was Eliza’s age. She’d certainly
thought
a lot about children all her life: about being one, about being a stepchild or a half-sibling, about having a child, and about losing it. But she did not know how to show her children how to be happy, or to give them happiness, which seemed to be the most important thing of all—certainly more important than piano lessons or Sunday School or SAT scores. Did any parents know? As Liddie used to say, “You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.” Eliza and William were good kids—intelligent, warm-hearted, stable. Except for Eliza’s preteen surliness, she thought they were fine. Mary Byrd hoped deeply that they’d stay that way, and she believed that with a little luck, because luck seemed to have everything to do with it, they would.
She and Mann sat in her kitchen and ate the fried egg and sautéed pepper sandwiches on stale French bread that Mann had constructed, and drank red wine. Mary Byrd wasn’t very hungry. She lit a Camel Light.
“Pretty good, if I do say so myself,” said Mann. “But I was kind of craving the pink center. And I think Wiggs was craving
yours.
”
“Shut up. He is not the least bit interested in me.” She sipped some wine. “And things are too screwed up for one of those conversations,” she said. “Anyway, he doesn’t even seem sexual, somehow. Like a lot of people who are, you know, interested mostly in themselves and what they do.” She didn’t really want the smoke and stubbed it out.
“Yeah, I guess,” said Mann, sopping olive oil with a hunk of bread. “This Chianti isn’t bad,” he said. “Even if it doesn’t have the black cock on the label.” He examined the bottle. “Hey, did you notice he was wearing the bulge exaggerator again? Dressed on the left this time, which I think is a signal.”
“I thought you didn’t like him, butt head.” She ate a few bites of fried egg. They were delicious. What would the world do without eggs?
“Of course I don’t.” He started singing sillily, “What’s
like
got to do, got to do with it?” Then, “He’s just so incredibly good-looking, all I’m saying. And you know what we say out at the coops: cock’s cock, even on livestock.” He picked up a box of matches. “I’m like these. A strike-anywhere kind of guy.”
She couldn’t help but give a little laugh. “You are
so
not
that. You are more afraid of cooties than I am,” she said. “Now I
am
wondering where Charles is. If one more fucked-up thing happens today, I’ll kill myself.”
“You didn’t even get those prints or anything, did you,” said Mann, stating a fact.
“No,” sighed Mary Byrd. “Charles will be pissed. But I have the excuse about the Bons. Maybe Charles can get with Wiggs in the morning.” She bit off more sandwich. “Is it my idea that almost everything revolves around or happens because of sex? Either too much of it or too little of it or the wrong kind of it? Or did I read that somewhere?” she said. “I mean, Angie killed Rod because he had a girlfriend. My stepbrother got—”
Mann cut her off, waving his little hands. “We are not going there now. You might have bad dreams.”
“I’ve been feeling all day like I’m
in
a bad dream!” Mary Byrd sighed loudly. “This stupid trip, and now what are we going to do about Angie?”
“What
can
you do?” Mann said. “You don’t even know what’s really happened.”
“I bet Teever will know something, if I can scare him up.” She wondered if he’d seen his message at the JFC yet.
“Yeah, but will it be true?”
“I don’t know—his information is surprisingly reliable.”
“Okay, so you know the details, then what?” Mann shrugged his shoulders.
“God. What a mess.” Mary Byrd said, absently scraggling up her hair with both hands. “And what good is it going to do for
me
to hear new crap about my stepbrother?” she asked.
“Because
duh
—didn’t we already do this? There will be one less bad guy in the world,” Mann said.