Stiltsville: A Novel (8 page)

Down the creek, we met the boys head-on. Kyle held up a string of jewel-toned bass, and we turned and followed them back to the campsite. When the boys noticed Bette’s hair, Kyle said, “Wow!” and Dennis said, “Can’t we trust you girls to be left alone?” I thought I heard an undercurrent of irritation in his voice. I supposed he’d witnessed a lifetime of impetuous decisions on Bette’s part.

“God, woman,” said Benjamin, “you went ahead and did it, didn’t you?”

I was relieved to know that the haircut had been discussed prior to that afternoon. I realized that Bette had brought the scissors for this purpose. When we were all standing on dry land, Benjamin touched Bette’s head, laughing, then patted her butt affectionately. “You’re something else,” he said. He turned to me, because I was closest. “Isn’t she something else?”

“Frances did it,” said Marse.

Dennis said, “You cut her hair?”

“I have a little experience,” I said. “I think it looks pretty good.”

He looked at me as if he wasn’t quite sure what to think. “You’re not going to do that to yourself, are you?”

I put an arm around his waist. “You never know.”

That night, Dennis taught me to gut a fish, and I helped him cook it and made potatoes in a skillet. The meal was as good as any I’d eaten in my life. We told the boys about our encounter with the alligator, and Dennis squeezed my knee and told me to be careful, and I caught Marse watching us in the firelight. Also in the firelight, I watched Bette bring a hand to her hair. Her gaze was deep and private. Though she and Benjamin were planning to wed in a few days, I knew in my bones that this would not happen.

We set the timer on Benjamin’s camera and took a group photograph on our last morning at the campsite. Marse, Bette, and I sat cross-legged on the ground and the men stood above us. Dennis was behind me, Benjamin was behind Bette, and Kyle was behind Marse, waving at the camera. I wore a diamond-checked minidress, Marse wore a red Swiss dot jumpsuit, and Bette wore a crocheted halter top and long canvas shorts. The men were shirtless. All six of us were smiling so you could see our teeth. I love this photograph. All these years, I’ve loved it. And one day my daughter found it in a chest filled with other old photographs, and she framed it and propped it up on her bookcase, first in her dorm room and then in her home. Once I overheard her pointing it out to a friend: “These are my parents,” she said. “This is my aunt Bette, and this is my mother’s best friend Marse.” In the way that old photos sometimes do, looking at it makes my heart ache a bit. But also I enjoy remembering my younger self this way: as an adventurer, as carefree. Mostly, I don’t think I was these things, but I guess sometimes, in Miami, I could be.

O
n the morning of Bette’s wedding, Dennis and I drove from South Beach to his parents’ house with the windows down, trying to dry our hair by the time we arrived. We’d gotten up late, after making love in the warm patch of sun that came in through his bedroom window. Gloria had specifically asked me to be there early to help set up, and I’d promised we would be—in matters of timeliness and politesse, the woman is always held more accountable than the man—and I was panicked to think I would disappoint her. But when we arrived, Gloria was upstairs with Bette and the caterers had commandeered the kitchen and backyard. Flowers were already in vases on the tables, and a row of silver chafing dishes lined the buffet. A bartender was arranging liquor bottles on a table down by the water. Grady called up the lawn from the pier, waving, and Dennis squeezed my arm and took off down the green expanse, his hands in his suit pockets. When I turned toward the house, I saw Benjamin sitting in a chair on the back deck, facing the water. He didn’t seem to notice me. I climbed the deck stairs, and when I stood right beside him he looked up, shading his eyes with one hand. “Hello there,” he said.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Bad luck to see the bride, or some such. The pastor’s late—car trouble.”

“That’s too bad.”

“We were going to practice.”

“Maybe you don’t need to practice.”

“Maybe.” He reached over and opened his palm. In it was a plain gold band: Bette’s wedding ring. “This is it.”

He seemed to want me to take it, so I did. “Very pretty.”

“It’s what she wanted. All of this, even the dress, is what she wanted.”

“The dress is lovely,” I said. The dress Bette had chosen was actually a suit, a fluted skirt and fitted jacket made of creamy brocade. I’d seen it hanging on the back of a closet door at her apartment, and I’d complimented her taste. “I’m airing it out,” she’d said, and I’d said, “Is it wet?” I was always confusing things she said, taking her literally. “It’s soggy with starch,” she’d said, and again I wasn’t sure if she was speaking figuratively. It was an experience I would continue to have for as long as we knew each other.

“But it’s strange,” said Benjamin. “Don’t you think it’s strange? Don’t you want more?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t think it was strange to not want gowns and diamonds and fancy parties on one’s wedding day. I didn’t think in itself this was alarming at all.

“Frances, I can afford a diamond. I want to buy my girl a diamond.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want a diamond.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then forced a laugh. “Girls with heads on their shoulders—a mixed blessing.” His hands twitched around each other in his lap. He was not nervous about marriage, of course: he was meant for marriage. He would be content in its warm headlock. But Benjamin knew, as I knew, that Bette was not made for marriage, and that if she didn’t know it that afternoon, she would figure it out one day, perhaps in the grocery store while choosing a melon, or at the tennis courts on a sunny Saturday, or outside their child’s school before the ringing of the final bell. He wiped his face. “Ignore me. Just jitters, I think. I’ll make myself a drink.” He walked off the deck and crossed the lawn to the bar. I watched him pour something into a glass and drink it and stand there alone, holding the table with one hand.

Inside, I knocked on Bette’s old bedroom door, and Gloria’s voice said, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Frances.”

The door opened, and there stood Gloria in a brassiere and girdle and stockings. Behind her, Bette was lying on her bed fully dressed, complete with white patent leather shoes, wearing more eye makeup than I’d ever seen her wear. Her short hair was blown dry and styled smartly. “Did the caterer find the wineglasses?” said Gloria.

Because I’d seen wineglasses on the bar outside, I said yes.

“Did they replace the wilted flowers?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

Bette sighed loudly at the ceiling.

“Is my husband still tinkering with his toy?” said Gloria.

“I think so,” I said.

“What is Benjamin doing? Is he practicing his lines?”

I nodded. “He said the pastor’s late.”

“That pastor is always late,” said Gloria. To Bette, she said, “I warned you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Bette quietly.

Bette’s old bedroom was large and bare, with beige walls and a light blue carpet that had seen heavy traffic. Her bed was high, with an antique wooden headboard, and each time she shifted it squeaked and knocked lightly against the wall. A car door slammed outside, and then another, and when I went to the window I saw that guests had begun to arrive. Grady was on the front porch, directing parking. He wore a blue seersucker suit with a red bow tie, and his hair was, as usual, uncombed.

Gloria joined me at the window. “The Tanners are here. And the Becks. And who is that? The Everests. People certainly are punctual, aren’t they?”

She stepped to the closet and pulled a lavender suit from a dry cleaning bag. While she dressed, I leaned over Bette. She was staring at the ceiling and humming softly. “What’s going on in your head?” I said.

I could see her deliberate between fibbing and telling the truth. “I’m just lying here, minutes before my wedding, thinking about diving.”

“Just diving, or diving a wreck?”

She nodded. “There’s one in the Keys, an albatross—that’s a plane, not a boat. Jane asked me to go down this weekend.”

“You’re busy this weekend.” In fact, Bette and Benjamin planned to take Grady’s boat to Bimini for their honeymoon.

“Yes, I am.” She blinked. “Mother, could you please leave?”

She said this as nicely as possible, but still Gloria, who was not yet zipped, was surprised. “I beg your pardon?” she said. I rushed to help her zip up. “Thank you, Frances. Dear, I will leave, but only because I want to check to make sure they didn’t bungle the order of the buffet.” She paused before leaving. “You look very pretty,” she told Bette. “Refresh your lipstick. You have ten minutes.”

When she’d left, Bette hopped off the bed and stood by the window, biting her nails. “We’re serving cocktails first. That was Benny’s idea,” she said. “He said he wanted people to relax and enjoy themselves.” She started to cry. When I stepped forward to console her—how I would do it, I didn’t know, she wasn’t a particularly consolable person—she raised a hand to stop me. “Don’t. I deserve it. It’s my fault.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Poor Benny.”

“He wants you to be happy,” I said, which was not quite the truth. He wanted her to be happy with him.

She stopped crying and stared through the window at the driveway. More car doors slammed. I stood next to her and watched as carload after carload of people—older people, mostly, Grady and Gloria’s age—stepped out, holding their hats and smoothing down their skirts. “There are Benjamin’s parents,” said Bette. She waved ineffectually at the window pane. “Hi Maggie, hi Bud,” she said softly. To me, she said, “They are such nice people. All of these people, all the people who are here, are really nice. It was kind of them to come.” She turned toward me. “You should marry Dennis,” she said. “You’ll have a beautiful wedding. You’ll look so pretty, and he’ll look so handsome, and the way you two look together—the way you two look at each other—you should marry him.” She glanced back out the window. “Will you?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Promise?” she said, and again I said, “Yes.”

“My mother will be pleased. She likes you. I didn’t tell her you cut my hair.”

“I appreciate that.”

She started to undress, shoes and stockings first. Then off came her skirt, then her jacket, and then she was standing there in just a camisole, shivering. I handed her a pair of blue jeans and a blouse from her closet. “Are you absolutely sure?” I said.

“I’m so sorry.” She had her hand on the doorknob. “Will we still be friends?”

“Of course.” I reached out to touch her shoulder, and though she was not fond of displays of affection, she turned and hugged my neck, hard, before stepping through the doorway and hurrying down the stairs.

I found Dennis on the back porch with a bottle of beer in his hand. “Is the girl ready yet?” he said. “My mother is restless.”

Gloria was below us, on the patio by the pool, standing with a couple I’d never seen before. I caught her stare. Seeing my expression, she took a tentative step toward me, then stopped. She pointed at the back kitchen door. Dennis asked where I was going, but I didn’t stop to answer him. She reached the kitchen before I did and closed the door behind us. Inside, two black women in white aprons were stacking dishes and wiping down the counter. “Could we have a minute?” said Gloria, and the women left the room. She took me by the shoulders. “What is it? What did she do?”

“Gloria, she’s left.”

“No!” She smacked the counter with the flat of her hand, wincing, then smacked it again. “That little brat,” she said, but in the next moment her lip started to tremble. “Get Grady for me?”

I stepped out of the kitchen and signaled to Dennis. He came forward with long strides. “Get your father,” I said. He started to step into the kitchen—he could see his mother bent over the counter—but I stopped him. “Hurry.”

I led Gloria to the kitchen table and got a juice glass from the cupboard. I poured from a bottle of wine that was open in an ice bucket on the counter. She took several long swallows, then started to cry. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“I know it’s not your fault.”

It had not occurred to me, until that moment, that she might think this was my fault. How could it be? But the timing of events—my arrival on the scene, Bette’s assent to setting a wedding date, our burgeoning friendship, and now this horror: I suppose it was possible my presence had stirred the brew of their lives, however subtly. Gloria finished her wine and handed me the glass. “More, please,” she said, and I rushed to refill it. Grady came in the back door, Dennis behind him, and in a second Grady was kneeling beside his wife’s chair, and she was in his arms, sobbing. “It’s my fault,” she kept saying. “That spoiled little girl.”

Grady shushed her softly and said, “Sometimes things just go haywire.”

Dennis pulled me to his side and we watched his parents. “Where is she?”

“She left. Someone needs to tell Benjamin.”

“I’ll do it,” Dennis said. I stepped onto the back deck to give Gloria and Grady some privacy, and Dennis crossed the lawn toward the bar, where Benjamin stood with a small circle of friends. Dennis led him toward the house, and when they were far from other people, he put his arm around Benjamin’s large shoulders and started talking. Benjamin stopped short, then put a hand over his face. When his hand came down I saw that he was not angry, not upset. He looked calm but weary, and he nodded and took several deep breaths. He even looked around a little, as if hoping to see her, then turned back to Dennis and shook his hand. Together they made their way back up to the house.