Dolores Claiborne (21 page)

She seen me bringin out a tray of scrambled eggs n hurried over to give me some instructions, but she didn’t walk like she had been walkin the last few days—like she really wanted to be runnin—and the smile stayed on her face. I thought, She’s happy—that’s all it is. She’s accepted that her kids aren’t comin and has decided she can be happy just the same. And that
was
all ... unless you knew her, and knew how rare a thing it was for Vera Donovan to be happy. Tell you somethin, Andy—I knew her another thirty years, almost, but I don’t think I ever saw her really happy again. Content, yes, and resigned, but happy? Radiant n happy, like a butterfly wanderin a field of flowers on a hot summer afternoon? I don’t think so.

“Dolores!” she says. “Dolores Claiborne!” It never occurred to me until a lot later that she’d called me by my maiden name, even though Joe was still alive n well that morning, and she never had before. When it
did
occur to me I shivered all over, the way you’re s’posed to do when a goose walks acrost the place where you’ll be buried someday.

“Mornin, Vera,” I said back. “I’m sorry the day’s so gray.”

She glanced up at the sky, which was hung with low, humid summer clouds, then smiled. “The sun will be out by three o’clock,” she says.

“You make it sound like you put in a work-order for it,” I says.

I was only teasin, accourse, but she gave me a serious little nod and said, “Yes—that’s just what I did. Now run into the kitchen, Dolores, and see why that stupid caterer hasn’t brought out a fresh pot of coffee yet.”

I set out to do as she ast, but before I got more’n four steps toward the kitchen door, she called after me just like she’d done two days before, when she told me that sometimes a woman has to be a bitch to survive. I turned around with the idear in my head that she was gonna tell me that same thing all over again. She didn’t though. She was standin there in her pretty red-n-white tent-dress, with her hands on her hips n that hosstail lyin over one shoulder, lookin not a year over twenty-one in that white mornin light.

“Sunshine by three, Dolores!” she says. “See if I’m not right!”

The buffet was over by eleven, and me n the girls had the kitchen to ourselves by noon, the caterer and his people havin moved on down to the
Island Princess
to start gettin ready for Act Two. Vera herself left fairly late, around twelve-fifteen, drivin the last three or four of her comp‘ny down to the dock herself in the old Ford Ranch Wagon she kep on the island. I stuck with the warshin-up until one o’clock or so, then told Gail Lavesque, who was more or less my second in command that day, that I felt a little headachey n sick to my stomach, and I was gonna go on home now that the worst of the mess was ridded up. On my way out, Karen Jolander gave me a hug and thanked me. She was cryin again, too. I swan to goodness, that girl never stopped leakin around the eyes all the years I knew her.

“I don’t know who’s been talkin to you, Karen,” I said, “but you don’t have nothing to thank me for—I didn’t do a single solitary thing.”

“No one’s said a word to me,” she says, “but I know it was you, Missus St. George. No one else’d dare speak up to the old dragon. ”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek n told her I thought she wouldn’t have nothing to worry about as long as she didn’t drop any more plates. Then I set out for home.

I remember everythin that happened, Andy—
everythin—
but from the time I stepped off Vera’s driveway and onto Center Drive, it’s like rememberin things that’ve happened in the brightest, most real-seemin dream you’ve ever had in your life. I kep thinkin “I’m goin home to kill my husband, I’m goin home to kill my husband,” like I could pound it into my head the way you’d pound a nail into some thick wood like teak or mahogany, if I only kept at it long enough. But lookin back on it, I guess it was in my
head
all the time. It was my
heart
that couldn’t understand.

Although it was only one-fifteen or so when I got to the village and the start of the eclipse still over three hours away, the streets were so empty it was spooky. It made me think of that little town down in the southern part of the state where they say no one lives. Then I looked up at the roof of The Harborside, and that was spookier still. There must’ve been a hundred people or more up there already, strollin around n checkin the sky like farmers at plantin time. I looked downhill to the dock and seen the
Princess
there, her gangplank down and the auto deck full of people instead of cars. They was walkin around with drinks in their hands, havin themselves a big open-air cocktail-party. The dock itself was crammed with people, and there musta been five hundred small boats—more’n I’d ever seen out there at one time anyway—on the reach already, anchored and waitin. And it seemed like everyone you saw, whether they was on the hotel roof or the town dock or the
Princess,
was wearin dark glasses and holdin either a smoked-glass eclipse-viewer or a reflector-box. There’s never been a day like it on the island before or since, and even if I hadn’t had in mind what I did have in mind, I think it woulda felt like a dream to me.

The greenfront was open, eclipse or no eclipse —I expect
that
booger’ll be doin business as usual even on Apocalypse Morn. I stopped in, bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, then walked on out East Lane to the house. I gave the bottle to Joe first thing—didn’t make any bones about it, just plopped it into his lap. Then I walked into the house n got the bag Vera had given me, the one with the eclipse-viewers and reflector-boxes in it. When I came out on the back porch again, he was holdin that bottle of Scotch up so he could see the color.

“Are you gonna drink it or just admire it?” I ast him.

He give me a look, kinda suspicious, and says, “Just what the hell is this, Dolores?”

“It’s a present to celebrate the eclipse,” I said. “If you don’t want it, I c’n always pour it down the sink.”

I made as if to reach for it n he yanked it back real quick.

“You been givin me one helluva lot of presents just lately,” he says. “We can’t afford stuff like this, eclipse or no eclipse.” That didn’t stop him from gettin out his pocket-knife and slittin the seal, though; didn’t even seem to slow him down.

“Well, to tell you the truth, it’s not just the eclipse,” I says. “I’ve just been feelin so good and so relieved that I wanted to share some of my happiness. And since I’ve noticed that most of what seems to make
you
happy comes out of a bottle ...”

I watched him take the cap off n pour himself a knock. His hand was shakin a little bit, and I wasn’t sorry to see it. The raggeder he was, the better my chances would be.

“What have
you
got to feel good about?” he asks. “Did somebody invent a pill to cure ugly?”

“That’s a pretty mean thing to say to someone who just bought you a bottle of premium Scotch,” I said. “Maybe I really
should
take it back.” I reached for it again and he pulled it back again.

“Fat chance,” he says.

“Then be nice,” I told him. “What happened to all that gratitude you were s’posed to be learnin in your A.A.?”

He never minded that, just went on lookin at me like a store-clerk tryin to decide if someone’d passed him a phony ten. “What’s got you feelin so goddam good?” he asks again. “It’s the brats, isn’t it? Havin em outta the house.”

“Nope, I miss em already,” I said, and it was the truth, too.

“Yeah, you would,” he says, n drinks his drink. “So what is it?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I says, n starts gettin up.

He grabbed my arm and said, “Tell me now, Dolores. You know I don’t like it when you’re fresh.”

I looked down at him and says, “You better take your hand off me, or that expensive bottle of hooch might end up gettin broke over your head. I don’t want to fight with you, Joe, especially not today. I’ve got some nice salami, some Swiss cheese, and some water-biscuits.”

“Water-biscuits!” he says. “Jesus wept, woman!”

“Never mind,” I says. “I’m gonna make us a tray of
hors d’oeuvres
every bit as nice as the ones Vera’s guests are gonna have out on the ferry.”

“Fancy food like that gives me the shits,” he says. “Never mind any hosses’ ovaries; just make me a sandwich. ”

“All right,” I agreed. “I will.”

He was lookin toward the reach by then—probably me mentionin the ferry’d put him in mind of it—with his lower lip poochin out in that ugly way it had. There were more boats out there than ever, and it looked to me like the sky over em had lightened up a little bit. “Lookit em!” he says in that sneerin way of his—the one his youngest son was tryin so goddam hard to copy. “Ain’t nothin gonna happen that’s any more’n a thunderhead goin across the sun, and they’re all just about shootin off in their pants. I hope it rains! I hope it comes down s’hard it drowns that snooty cunt you work for, and the rest of em, too!”

“That’s my Joe,” I says. “Always cheery, always charitable. ”

He looked around at me, still holdin that bottle of Scotch curled against his chest like a bear with a chunk of honeycomb. “What in the name of Christ are you runnin on about, woman?”

“Nothin,” I says. “I’m going inside to fix the food—a sandwich for you and some
hors d’oeuvres
for me. Then we’ll sit n have a couple of drinks n watch the eclipse—Vera sent down a viewer and a reflector-box thingamajig for each of us—and when it’s over, I’ll tell you what’s got me feeling so happy. It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like fucking surprises,” he says.

“I know you don’t,” I told him. “But you’ll get a kick out of this one, Joe. You’d never guess it in a thousand years.” Then I went into the kitchen so he could really get started on that bottle I’d bought him at the greenfront. I wanted him to enjoy it—I really did. After all, it was the last liquor he was ever gonna drink. He wouldn’t need A.A. to keep him off the sauce, either. Not where he was goin.

That was the longest afternoon of my life, and the strangest, too. There he was, sittin on the porch in his rocker, holdin the paper in one hand and a drink in the other, bitchin in the open kitchen window at me about somethin the Democrats were tryin to do down in Augusta. He’d forgot all about tryin to find out what I was happy about, and all about the eclipse, as well. I was in the kitchen, makin him a sandwich, hummin a tune, and thinkin, “Make it good, Dolores—put on some of that red onion he likes and just enough mustard to make it tangy. Make it good, cause it’s the last thing he’s ever gonna eat.”

From where I was standin, I could look out along the line of the woodshed and see the white rock and the edge of the blackberry tangle. The handkerchief I’d tied to the top of one of the bushes was still there; I could see that, too. It went noddin back n forth in the breeze. Every time it did, I thought of that spongy wellcap right under it.

I remember how the birds sang that afternoon, and how I could hear some of the people out on the reach yellin back and forth to each other, their voices all tiny and far—they sounded like voices on the radio. I can even remember what I was hummin: “Amazin Grace, how sweet the sound.” I went on hummin it while I made my crackers n cheese (I didn’t want em any more’n a hen wants a flag, but I didn’t want Joe wonderin why I wasn’t eatin, either).

It must have been quarter past two or so when I went back out on the porch with the tray of food balanced on one hand like a waitress and the bag Vera’d give me in the other. The sky was still overcast, but you could see it really had gotten quite a bit lighter.

That was a good little feed, as things turned out. Joe wasn’t much for compliments, but I could see from the way he put down his paper n looked at his sandwich while he was eatin that he liked it. I thought of somethin I’d read in some book or saw in some movie: “The condemned man ate a hearty meal. ” Once I’d got that in my head, I couldn’t get rid of the damned thing.

It didn’t stop me from diggin into my own kip, though; once I got started, I kept goin until every one of those cheese-n-cracker things were gone, and I drank a whole bottle of Pepsi as well. Once or twice I found myself wonderin if most executioners have good appetites on the days when they have to do their job. It’s funny what a person’s mind will get up to when that person’s nervin herself up to do somethin, isn’t it?

The sun broke through the clouds just as we were finishin up. I thought of what Vera’d told me that mornin, looked down at my watch, and smiled. It was three o’clock, right on the button. About that same time, Dave Pelletier—he delivered mail on the island back in those days—drove back toward town, hell bent for election and pullin a long rooster-tail of dust behind him. I didn’t see another car on East Lane until long after dark.

I put the plates and my empty soda bottle on the tray, scoochin down to do it, n before I could stand up, Joe done somethin he hadn’t done in years: put one of his hands on the back of my neck n give me a kiss. I’ve had better; his breath was all booze n onion n salami and he hadn’t shaved, but it was a kiss just the same, and nothing mean or half-assed or peckish about it. It was just a nice kiss, n I couldn’t remember the last time he’d give me one. I closed my eyes n let him do it. I remember that —closin my eyes and feelin his lips on mine and the sun on my forehead. One was as warm n nice as the other.

“That wa’ant half-bad, Dolores,” he said—high praise, comin from him.

I had a second there when I kinda wavered—I ain’t gonna sit here and say different. It was a second when it wasn’t Joe puttin his hands all over Selena that I saw, but the way his forehead looked in study-hall back in 1945—how I saw that and wanted him to kiss me just the way he was kissin me now; how I thought, “If he kissed me I’d reach up and touch the skin there on his brow while he did it ... see if it’s as smooth as it looks.”

I reached out my hand n touched it then, just like I’d dreamed of doin all those years before, when I’d been nothin but a green girl, and the minute I did, that inside eye opened wider’n ever. What it saw was how he’d go on if I let him go on—not just gettin what he wanted from Selena, or spendin the money he’d robbed out of his kids’ bank accounts, but
workin
on em; belittlin Joe Junior for his good grades n his love of history; clappin Little Pete on the back whenever Pete called somebody a sheeny or said one of his classmates was lazy as a nigger; workin on em; always workin on em. He’d go on until they were broke or spoiled, if I let him, and in the end he’d die n leave us with nothin but bills and a hole to bury him in.