Always laughing, those sorority girls, tossing their heads, floating in that other world where there were no concerns that couldn’t be handled by a quick vote in a chapter meeting. When she’d stepped up on the porch, Alice had felt perfect in her copy of the designer suit, but now sitting next to the beautiful Estelle and across from the haughty Elinor, she suddenly felt home-made-with-loving-hands, the worst description a girl could receive on campus. Alice’s Mother had worked all day yesterday cutting, basting, fitting, between visits from her china-painting students. Then she’d worked all night doing the finishing work, using the lining from her own dressing gown to make the satin cuffs and collar. The sight of the dear old dressing gown, dismembered, and lying on the sofa with pages torn from the New York fashion magazine, had made Alice squeamish.
“Do you know any Phi Delts?” Elinor suddenly asked Alice. “Don’t you think they’re fun?”
“I might. I don’t know,” she said to Elinor. “ I mean I don’t know if I know any.” She wished Cecil would help her out—tell his sister that she didn’t care what fraternity a guy was in. But Cecil was busy shoveling the food into his mouth in the same noisy way he had when he’d eaten dinner with her parents. The girls sat with their hands in her laps, eating like little ladies. Why hadn’t Cecil been taught better manners?
“Which house are you?” Estelle asked.
“I never got around to going through rush.” Heat rose in her face.
“I told you,” Elinor said to Estelle.
“Oh, of course. Sorry,” Estelle said. “Cecil did say something.”
She shouldn’t have let herself sound disdainful. She should have said she was considering pledging as an upperclassman. Cecil was staring at his plate. Alice glanced upward. The ceiling fan was turning slowly over the table, but no breeze penetrated the heat pouring off her. If only she could start over, come in the front door again.
“We’re Gamma Phi Beta’s.”
“I know,” Alice said. She looked in her lap. Oh for heaven’s sake! Mother had missed removing a row of tailor tacking along the edge of one of the cuffs. Under the table she began to pull at the thread. Why didn’t Mrs. Brady change the subject? The woman seemed bent on tearing the flesh off that chicken back she held in front of her face.
“Yeah, cost me a fortune, those house fees,” Mr. Brady said. He leaned back in his armchair, a broad-shouldered man with silver hair worn long and combed back. In his white linen Sunday suit, he looked twice the size of his son. “I left school after the sixth grade, myself. Our generation didn’t put such emphasis on education,” he said.
Alice smiled. She shouldn’t mention she was the third generation of her family to go to college. “Your generation were men of action, right, Mr. Brady? My grandfather was an aide to Col. Joshua Chamberlain.”
“He was a Yankee?” Mrs. Brady looked aghast. “All our people came from Mississippi.”
“My mother’s originally from North Carolina,” Alice rushed to say. “My father was from Nebraska.”
“What a marriage!” Elinor hooted.
“Oh, no. They don’t care about the Civil War. It was so long ago.”
“Did your father serve in the Great War?” Mrs. Brady asked.
“He tried, but he was too small.”
“Then you’re used to short stuff,” Elinor laughed.
Incredible, an older sister making such an unkind remark. Poor Cecil. She should say something. But what could she say that wouldn’t embarrass him? He was small, like her own father, but he had ten times Daddy’s get up and go. Cecil would never let his family get in such straits as hers was in. But why didn’t he help her right now with his own family? Was she the only one here who was trying to be nice?
And what was this table setting about? The napkins were damask and the plates Haviland, but the silver was all mismatched, some losing its plate. Her own family had no silver, nor much fine china either since all her mother painted went for barter or to pay the doctor bills, but she’d expected better of Cecil’s family after all he’d told her. She looked at the handle of her fork.
“This is not our best silver,” Mrs. Brady said. Mortified, Alice blushed and put down the fork. Mr. Brady snickered.
“I lost the silver,” he said, leaning toward her, his dark hand cupped as though whispering a secret, “playing cards one night down at the Odd Fellows Hall. Woulda claimed the other guy was cheatin’ but he had a gun.”
Elinor shot her father a dark look. Estelle sighed. Mr. Brady slapped the corner of the table next to Alice, and she jumped. “Know what’s good for business, Alice?” he said just to her. “Last Saturday I found out what’s good for business. A body. Yes, sir. Even better, a murdered body.”
“C.L.,” Mrs. Brady murmured, but Mr. Brady went right on.
“A murdered body on a wagon was driven up right in front of Mingles.”
“I showed you Mingles Drug,” Cecil said, “when we came through the downtown.”
“Yes, yes, I remember.”
“You know, Alice, I learned all about business when I clerked for J.J. McAlister, himself.” Mr. Brady leaned closer. “Now about this body. You see, Alice, Dr. Harris hangs out in the drug store at one of the back tables of the ice cream parlor. A family can’t bury a body without a death certificate from him, and if the death’s from natural causes, the doctor just signs a certificate and sends the body on to Chaney’s. But this body had been shot right in the heart. A big guy with whiskers. I was standing in the window of my store and could see the bloody shirt when Harris came out with his black bag to make his examination. Now since this was clearly a murder—”
“It could have been an accident,” Cecil said.
“Shut up, Cecil,” Mr. Brady said softly and continued.
Alice gasped, a father talking that way at the table. Cecil clenched his jaw and looked down.
“Since this was clearly a murder,
Alice—”
Mr. Brady emphasized her name, insisting she turn back to him—“Harris had to notify the county sheriff who is never around when you need him. So that corpse lay there in the sunshine all afternoon, drawing a huge crowd, plenty who came into my store. Even better for business than a good fight.” He tossed his napkin across his plate.
Alice smiled back at her host. Did he like her? She was sure none of the others did. Cecil was again staring at his plate. He’d pointed out the store with pride, but admitted the boarded-up hotel was also his father’s. She glanced around the dining room. There was a fine Seth Thomas clock on the mantle, but not much else. A dusty rectangle on the paint over the mantle suggested a missing painting or mirror. There was no silver service on a tea cart as she’d expected, no carpets. Had there been more nice possessions? Things they’d sold or pawned? But if they themselves were on hard times, why were they being so snippy to her?
“Business all over the country just gets worse and worse,” Mr. Brady said.
“If you’d make your tenants pay their rent,” Mrs. Brady said, “things would be a whole lot better.” She rose and carried the chicken platter to the kitchen.
“Used to, Estelle and I each had blooded mares to ride when we were home,” Elinor said.
“Blooded mares! How grand.” Alice looked at the clock. 1:10. Dessert, a few pleasantries, and they could leave.
Mrs. Brady returned with a chess pie and served everyone a piece. “My, this is heavenly, Mrs. Brady,” Alice said. Mrs. Brady shrugged.
“Your mother’s a painter, isn’t she?” Estelle asked. “It must be wonderful to live in a house full of paintings.”
“Oh, we can’t afford to keep them.” Silence. Estelle and Elinor exchanged looks.
“Let’s walk to the creek,” Mr. Brady said to Alice.
“I was gonna drive her around,” Cecil said, “show her Grand Avenue, all those homes.”
“Naw, you don’t want to do that,” Mr. Brady said. “It’s a beautiful day.” Cecil glared at his father.
“You change your clothes,” Mrs. Brady said to her husband. It was late in the season for a white suit, Alice realized. Mother always made Daddy put away his straw hat on Labor Day.
“A little walk beneath the trees would be lovely,” Alice said. “Why, when my daddy’s family first pioneered from Nebraska in the 1880’s, there were so few trees, they first had to live in a dugout.” The members of the family rose from the table without response. Perhaps relatives living in the ground like prairie dogs was not the best heritage to be claiming at this table.
* * *
Mr. Brady came downstairs in a tweed jacket and twill pants. He carried a rifle, and as he, Cecil and Alice rounded the house, he picked up a heavy looking gunny sack. “Do you shoot?” he asked her.
“Never have, no sir.”
They walked through a backyard bordered by beds of day lilies. In the center of the yard was a statue of a little boy holding a big fish with a tube emerging from its mouth, but the small moat around the statue was dry. Cecil had told her they’d had parties here once, but today no guests had been invited to meet her.
The ground rose sharply once they were out of the yard, and Cecil took her hand as they climbed past a large outcropping of rock toward a grove of white-trunked trees. “Cottonwoods,” Cecil said, “and those are hickories.”
“Lovely,” she said, looking up, then down, watching where she put each step to protect her shoes. A walk was actually not a great idea for her, traipsing through grass in pale suede pumps. Mother had traded a huge, lidded soup tureen, trimmed in gold to Mr. Welcher for these shoes. Mr. Brady took huge strides, a man easy in his body.
At the top of the rise, she saw that the land plunged down toward a ribbon of dark water overhung by willows—lovely, like a scene Mother might paint on a platter. Cecil pulled her into a run toward the water leaving Mr. Brady to saunter down to the bank with the rifle and the gunny.
“You want a cigarette?” Cecil whispered when they reached the bank.
Yes, yes, that would really help, but she whispered, “Cecil, I wouldn’t smoke a cigarette in front of your father.”
He dropped her hand and fished his Lucky Strikes out of his pocket. He was the only one who knew she liked the taste of cigarettes, and she felt uneasy, not accepting his offer. To be alone with him, beside this rushing water, leaning her head back on a tree, exhaling a little plume of smoke from red lips—
Mr. Brady rested the rifle and the gunny sack against a tree, then sat down in the shade and took off his jacket. “Go on and swim, Cecil,” he said, “I’ll take care of Alice.”
“It’s October, Daddy. I’m not gonna swim.” He sucked hard on his cigarette and flipped it toward the creek.
“Alice, come here and sit in the shade.” Mr. Brady spread open his coat on the ground beside him, and she sat on it and pulled her feet under her skirt where she could slip her heels out of the shoes which had started to rub. A bird chirped, and she felt her shoulders relax. Cecil came and sat on the grass beside her. Mr. Brady took up his rifle, aimed toward a floating tree branch in the creek and fired. She clutched her waist, head down, ears ringing. Cecil put his arm around her.
“I’m sorry, Alice,” Mr. Brady said, “I shoulda warned ya. I really am sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ve just never been up close to a gun when it was fired, except at the pictures, of course.” She smiled at Cecil.
“Now, Alice,” Mr. Brady said, “the report won’t shock so when you do it yourself. You’ll see. Stand up.” He handed her the rifle and stood to help her hold it properly. The gun was huge and awkward, and the smell of gunpowder was sharp in her nose. She willed her hands to stop shaking and bent her eye to line up the sights as she was instructed. If Cecil didn’t want her to do this, he should speak up. But he didn’t say anything, just stood up to get out of the way as his father moved around behind to adjust her elbows. “Now think of the trigger like it’s a lemon you’re squeezin’,” Mr. Brady said close to her face. “Forget about pullin’. Use your whole hand. Just relax. Now line up the sights. See that big branch out there in the middle. Hit that.”
She didn’t wait to take a breath, but fired twice on command.
Mr. Brady grinned and pointed and spoke to Cecil who made a faint smile. She wanted to go now. She could not hear any birds or even the sound of the water rushing along. She extended the gun to Mr. Brady and watched his lips moving. Her ears popped and her hearing returned. “. . . back to me. No, ma’am. You’ve got lots of shooting left to do.” The gun was heavy, and holding it, she didn’t feel like herself.
“Maybe Alice doesn’t care for shooting,” Cecil said.
She didn’t, but it seemed to be Mr. Brady’s planned entertainment for her. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’d better try to learn while I have the chance.”
Mr. Brady fished two long bullets out of his pocket. Then his sun-splotched hands took the rifle from her and broke it open and knocked the shells on the ground. She took off her suit coat, folded it on Mr. Brady’s opened jacket, and unbuttoned the cuffs of her silk blouse. He reached into the gunnysack, pulled out a dried corncob, and threw it way up the creek. It bobbed to the surface and floated along in the current toward them, a little boat alone. “Now take aim, careful, careful and fire.”
She couldn’t catch Cecil’s eye.
“Go on, Alice, take aim,” Mr. Brady said. By the time she spotted the corncob again, it had passed them in its ride. She lined up the two sights, pointed at the receding cob and fired. The cob shot up onto the far bank. She swallowed to clear her ears. “Awww right! Fine and dandy, Alice. You are an absolute natural sharp shooter. Did you see that, Cecil? Did you see that?”
But Cecil didn’t answer, just stooped to pick up a stone and sailed it hard toward the broadest part of the water. She handed back the rifle. “I think Cecil’s ready to go,” she said.
“Naw,” Cecil said, “Y’all go on. I think I’ll just lie down right here after all that dinner.” He lay back on the ground and rested his head on his folded arms. Didn’t he care now if she went deaf pleasing his father?
“Come on now, Alice,” Mr. Brady said. “This is too easy for you. Break open the rifle like I did.” He handed her four more bullets. She dropped two into her skirt pocket, inserted the others into the holes in the rifle, and snapped it closed as she’d seen him do. He dug into the gunny, grabbing two cobs with each hand. “Now I’m going to throw them in one after another. You don’t have to hit them in order, but pick your shots carefully.”