The Angry Woman Suite (5 page)

I felt shy: I could tell Aidan was sizing me up, too. He hadn’t brought me and Bean suckers or pennies, but he’d brought a crate of oranges and a crate of books, and when the other grownups trooped out to the backyard for drinks, Aidan lingered in the living room, arranging his books on our coffee table. I fidgeted in a safe corner, aware of Aidan’s blue eyes on me, anxious for him to join the other grownups. One of his books had caught my attention and I wanted a closer look. The book’s cover had a picture of a man on it, striding through a woodland. The man’s clothes were odd and he carried a long gun. I was mesmerized by the cover’s rich colors, the man’s clothes, the look of determination on his face.

Aidan spoke. “It’s a Waterston. A man called Matthew Waterston painted the picture used for that cover. Waterston’s a very famous artist.”

“Oh.” I felt something more was expected of me. “It’s very … bright.”

Aidan rocked on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. “Yes, it does have nice colors. I borrowed it, you see. The picture, that is. For my book. I wrote this book here. Story, I should say. Actually, history. That means it’s a
true
story. It really happened.”

“I like stories,” I said, edging nearer.

“Do you read much?”

“Not much,” I lied, reticent to show my hand so early in the game.

“If you like, then, I can tell you a story from this book. Then you can tell me a story. If you like.”

By the time Aidan finished telling me about the Battle of Brandywine, a famous battle of the American Revolution, a story about losing before winning, we were seated together on the couch. He’d told me about Washington’s Headquarters, the name of the house he lived in, where George Washington had lived too, for a few minutes anyway. And about his museum that celebrated the Great Battle, and the vast number of big trees on the battleground itself, put there just for little girls to climb on, he was sure of it. I was enthralled.

“Free-dom,”
Aidan emphasized, drawing the word out. “That’s what those brave, under-equipped and caught-unawares men were fighting for, Elyse:
free-dom.
Only thing worth losing a fight over. To this day, freedom is still the only thing worth fighting for. Better to win, though. Always better to win, thank you very much. And America did win, eventually. We lost the Battle of Brandywine, but we won the war. We won in the biggest way imaginable.”

Having been raised by a formidable game player, winning and losing were words I was accustomed to. I tried on Aidan’s word for size:
“Free-dom.”
To my mind it meant to dance, to run and holler with joy, without fear. I told Aidan this and he smiled, and then I told him one of Papa’s stories about the little people:

“Papa says their voices can’t exist unless we want them to.”

Aidan nodded solemnly, and next thing I knew I was telling him how my big, fat grandma in Sacramento could holler loud enough to be heard a county over—a love sound—and how hard Mississippi could be on a person’s nerves. Aidan told me about a woman called Stella, and for a second I considered asking him about the murdering women in Daddy’s old life, if he knew them. But Aidan was talking to beat the band, saying he was sure I’d like Stella, because Stella knew all about scared little girls—and
that
was when I felt the punch of fear, certain I’d revealed something to Aidan that I shouldn’t have.

What had I said, and when had I said it?
Secrets were supposed to reside with family. They were not to be shared with the world at large.

And so by the time Aidan got to asking me point-blank about Daddy, I was near panicky, unable to figure answers to anything without revealing scary things about Daddy, and anxious because I didn’t want Aidan to know about my badness streak, because I liked him so much by then, even if he was a Daddy-person. So it became imperative that I impress upon Aidan how much Daddy loved me, and how I loved to please Daddy, how I worked to please Daddy, and even how well I usually succeeded.

Daddy could be very nice, really he could—which was precisely what I ended up telling Aidan, and meaning it.

“That right?” Aidan murmured, looking at me oddly.

Of course, by this time I’d awed even myself—and it
was
an amazing thing really, how easily I loved and feared and incited at the same time, tying my ambivalence and contradictions up in pretty ribbons, like it was
normal,
even desired, all those warring emotions living within me, side by side by side. Equally amazing, I
was
a model child the entire time Aunt Rose and Aidan visited—although I did venture a few “damns” now and then, testing the waters. And although Aunt Rose looked like she might split a gut when she heard me cuss, Mother and Daddy didn’t so much as blink an eye. I figured Aidan, then, for being my good luck charm: Daddy wouldn’t dare hit me when Aidan was around.

One time, while my mother and aunt were in the kitchen, and Bean and I were on our way outside, I overheard Aidan and Daddy in the living room. “Best thing,” Aidan remarked. “Ignore the bad language and Elyse will stop.”

“I’m trying my best,” Daddy mumbled. “I really am.”

I flattened myself against the dining room wall and motioned for Bean to do the same.

“Every parent says that,” Aidan said. “But raising children isn’t about the parents, thank you very much. It’s about the children.”

“Look, Aidan,” Daddy said, “we’re
not
having more children, if that’s where you’re going with this, and I’m sure you are, so don’t worry. You know why. Besides, Diana … can’t.”

“Yes … right.”

The words poured out of Daddy then. “She has fits, Elyse does. Gets right down on the floor and pounds her fists. Holds her breath till she looks about ready to pass out. It’s damn scary, the things that child does!
And
she bites! Bites her own mother. Bit Diana on the leg the other day. That’s not normal, is it, Aidan? And Elyse imagines things. She imagines I hurt her. It’s horrible, just horrible, the stories Elyse makes up! Now, if I could’ve let the children stay behind in Sacramento, I would’ve … but the lack of supervision there—”

“What
are
you talking about?” Aidan’s tone was fierce.

“Whoa there … why’re you pulling a voice on
me?
This is about Elyse—”

“Francis, is there something more—?”

Nothing got said for the longest time, and then Daddy said so softly I had to strain to make out the words, “Jesus Christ, Aidan.” Another moment passed before Daddy said,
“Are you serious?
After what
they
did to me? After what those women did to me, you think I’d harm a hair on a child’s head?”

“Just asking, Francis. It’s not unreasonable. Not after Lothian.”

“Goddammit!”
Daddy exploded.

I put a hand to my mouth. Bean covered hers, too.

“
Goddammit,
Aidan!
After what
she
did to me! It’s what Lothian did to
me!”

“Okay, Francis.”

“It’s not okay!” Daddy sounded strangled. “Lothian nearly chewed my goddamn ear off my head! Lookit here, Aidan. I got one lobe shorter than the other, ever notice that? I’m missing half a goddamn ear, Aidan, and, hell, that’s goddamn nothing compared to—”

“Just don’t bullshit me, that’s all, Francis. Just don’t bullshit me.”

“They’re
murdering bitches
, Aidan. They’re—”

But I’d already begun inching down the hall, Bean’s hand in mine, recognizing dense and complicated when I heard it—which didn’t mean I wasn’t immensely intrigued by the term “murdering bitches.” Are you kidding? I was
beyond
intrigued—but Bean was trembling. I took her outside.

To Mother’s surprise and Daddy’s dismay (although he was polite enough, I could tell Daddy didn’t care for Aunt Rose), Aidan and Aunt Rose got along famously. And I say “everyone’s surprise,” because Aidan was “fastidious,” which was what I heard Daddy say to Mother, while Aunt Rose was not. So every afternoon Aidan and Aunt Rose took a pitcher of something cold out to the back yard and there they’d sit and drink and laugh uproariously until Mother took it upon herself to go out and tell Aunt Rose she was being too loud for the neighborhood, as if we lived someplace nice and fancy. “But it’s so damn hot,” Aunt Rose would gripe, like this was some kind of reason for being loud, dabbing her neck with a hankie. “I don’t know how you stand this damn heat, honey.” She’d hitch her dress up over her knees, revealing plump thighs, making Mother look even more exasperated.

One afternoon when I was out back with Aidan and Aunt Rose, Aidan said Daddy was getting discharged and that we were all taking a trip to Pennsylvania before Daddy took us and Aunt Rose back home to Sacramento. We were going to Pennsylvania so Daddy’s mother could meet me and Bean and Mother. I could hardly trust my own hearing: I was going home! It was a dream come true! But first there was this new grandmother to meet, which I didn’t care two figs about, not taking kindly to the idea of having to go to Pennsylvania before getting home to Papa and Grandma.

“Is this new grandmother fat?” I inquired of Aidan. Fat meant she’d be nice to me, like my fat grandma in Sacramento.

“She’s very pretty, actually.”

“But is she
nice?”

“She’ll do right by you.”

I’d heard this before. It’s what Daddy had said to Papa before taking me away to Biloxi.

“Are you sure this grandmother’s not a murdering bitch?”

Aunt Rose choked on her drink, and Aidan shot forward in his seat.
“What?”

“Never mind,” I said, letting my annoyance show. “Is this new grandmother sad and worried? I don’t particularly like sad and worried. I don’t like it when people’s nerves are shot.” I stomped my foot.

Aunt Rose arched an amused eyebrow. “Would you look at that temper,” she said, drawing on her cigarette. She said it with pride. I stuck my chest out.

“Are
you
worried?” Aidan asked gently.

“Well … sometimes,” I fumbled.

“Elyse, are you … sad?”

“Mainly it’s my daddy who’s sad,” I blurted. “He’s got holy nerves. They’re shot straight through.”

Aidan’s eyes were intent, as if faced with having to see through a particularly thick piece of skin. “Is that right?”

I couldn’t seem to shut up. “Rock and roll killed Daddy’s music,” I babbled, “and that gave Daddy a deep sadness because he couldn’t keep his famous orchestra going. Everybody wants rock and roll, not big band and Daddy. So Daddy’s not famous anymore.” Something dropped down over Aidan’s eyes then, I saw it plain as anything. “Daddy hates not being famous. He says it’s his due.”

“Pure hogwash,”
Aidan snorted, sitting back in his chair. “Now listen here, I love your stepfather like he’s my own, Elyse, but he’s got a problem here—a perception problem, and he wants to rewrite history. I’ve made a reputation pushing history, and what I’ve learned, pushing all that history, is you’ve got to get your foundation right if you plan on getting anywhere. You’ve got to know the truth of where you’ve been.”

Aidan stared into the distance. I looked at where he was looking, at nothing. “What I’m trying to say is your stepfather never got to the
middle
of his story—he began reading a journal I wrote for him, but I suspect he bypassed the middle and went straight to the end. He missed the whole point. And then he got himself stuck in the stars, going for the moon. Fact is, Francis got himself stuck so far in the clouds, he still can’t see shit—” Aidan’s eyes shifted back to me. “Sorry. Excuse the language, thank you very much.”

Which was another thing I didn’t get for the longest time, this getting stuck in the stars. Actually, I was thirty-five years old before I realized there
is
a place where you can get your head stuck in the stars, and that a rainbow sky has silver clouds, too. This was years after I deduced who set the fire killing Francis’s grandparents, and years after I stopped
hating
Francis for what happened to Bean, and many years after my first look at Francis and Mother digging out their comfort in a land lighted by Mother’s rainbows and silver clouds—that is, until the high wire they walked on loosened, dumping their fragile natures.

So, in a nutshell, I’ve just described Francis Grayson for you from my very biased point of view. An orchestra leader who knew every song in the play book; a game player who could be the last man left standing, yet still be talking himself ragged trying to convince you he was the biggest victim of all time.

And it was his look, that movie star look, the come-hither and go-away expressions at the same time: the way he bit his lower lip taking in a room, looking like he wanted to join in, but not quite sure he’d come to the right place. That’s what made it work for him. People had always wanted to help Francis Grayson. They’d wanted to believe in him. They’d
wanted
to invite him in. They’d wanted to
be
him.

He’d just never believed in
them.
And that’s why he was a gamer.

And I’d bet money Francis Grayson had been that way from the very start. In fact, I know it, because
I
read Aidan’s journal.

All the way through, and many times.

FRANCIS
Pennsylvania 1933

I remember the exact day my destiny was sealed. It was my brother Earl’s fault, of course. He was the one who set me up, who gave root to the fantasy, this idea I could have a life beyond Grayson House. “Think of it, Francis,” he told me time and time again.
“School.
Kids your own age, no aunts. No
wimmin.
Not for six whole hours.”

What a pissant. Still, the edict had made me almost giddy; no women for six whole hours, plus I’d get to go to town. Despite a reasonable apprehension, town was where I really wanted to be, and Earl had assured me that the people in East Chester were actually quite nice, and that once all those nice people got to know me, they’d make me one of their own and I’d be free of the women. Just like what had happened for him.

I counted carefully. But it wasn’t six hours. I’d be gone from Grayson House almost
eight
hours, counting the quarter-hour walk to the base of Grayson Hill, and then the nearly three-quarters of an hour walk more to the outskirts of East Chester. A right turn off Broad Street, at Nutmeg, where the five and dime was, then two blocks past the butcher's, the bank, the green grocer’s and the post office, and there I’d be, smack dab in the middle of everything of consequence. Then an hour’s walk back. Eight hours without the women. Heaven.