Taltos (31 page)

“And what if you’re a boy?” she asked.

She picked up the receiver.

It was Ryan. The funeral was over, and the Mayfair crowd was arriving at Bea’s house. Lily was going to stay there for a few days, and so would Shelby and Aunt Vivian. Cecilia was uptown, seeing to Ancient Evelyn, and was doing well.

“Could you offer some old-fashioned First Street hospitality to Mary Jane Mayfair for a while?” asked Ryan. “I can’t take her down to Fontevrault till tomorrow. And besides, I think it would be good if you got to know her. And naturally, she’s half in love with First and Chestnut and wants to ask you a thousand questions.”

“Bring her over,” said Mona. The milk tasted good! It was just about the coldest milk she’d ever tasted, which killed all the ickiness of it, which she had never much liked. “I’d welcome her company,” she went on. “This place is spooky, you are right.”

Instantly she wished she hadn’t admitted it, that she, Mona Mayfair, had been spooked in the great house.

But Ryan was off on the track of duty and organization and simply continued to explain that Granny Mayfair, down at Fontevrault, was being cared for by the little boy from Napoleonville, and that this was a good opportunity to persuade Mary Jane to get out of that ruin, and to move to town.

“This girl needs the family. But she doesn’t need any more of this grief and misery just now. Her first real visit has for obvious reasons been a disaster. She’s in shell shock from the accident. You know she saw the entire accident. I want to get her out of here—”

“Well, sure, but she’ll feel closer to everybody afterwards,” said Mona with a shrug. She took a big, wet, crunchy bite of the apple. God, was she hungry. “Ryan, have you ever heard of the name Morrigan?”

“I don’t think so.”

“There’s never been a Morrigan Mayfair?”

“Not that I remember. It’s an old English name, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm. Think it’s pretty?”

“But what if the baby is a boy, Mona?”

“It’s not, I know,” she said. And then caught herself. How in the world could she know? It was the dream, wasn’t it, and it also must have been wishful thinking, the desire to have a girl child and bring her up free and strong, the way girls were almost never brought up.

Ryan promised to be there within ten minutes.

Mona sat against the pillows, looking out again at the Resurrection ferns and the bits and pieces of blue sky beyond. The house was silent all around her, Eugenia having disappeared. She crossed her bare legs, the shirt easily covering her knees with its thick lace hem. The sleeves were horribly rumpled, true, but so what? They were sleeves fit for a pirate. Who could keep anything like that neat? Did pirates? Pirates must have gone about rumpled. And Beatrice had bought so many of these things! It was supposed to be “youthful,” Mona suspected. Well, it was pretty. Even had pearl buttons. Made her feel like a … a little mother!

She laughed. Boy, this apple was good.

Mary Jane Mayfair. In a way, this was the only person in the family that Mona could possibly get excited about seeing, and on the other hand, what if Mary Jane started saying all kinds of wild and witchy things? What if she started running off at the mouth irresponsibly? Mona wouldn’t be able to handle it.

She took another bite of the apple. This will help with vitamin deficiencies, she thought, but she needed the supplements Annelle Salter had prescribed for her. She drank the rest of the milk in one Olympian gulp.

“What about ‘Ophelia’?” she said aloud. Would that be right, to name a girl child after poor mad Ophelia, who had drowned herself after Hamlet’s rejection? Probably not. Ophelia’s my secret name, she thought, and you’re going to be called Morrigan.

A great sense of well-being came over her. Morrigan. She closed her eyes and smelled the water, heard the waves crashing on the rocks.

*   *   *

A sound woke her, abruptly. She’d been asleep and she didn’t know how long. Ryan was standing beside the bed, and Mary Jane Mayfair was with him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mona, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and coming round to greet them. Ryan was already backing out of the room.

“I presume you know,” he said, “that Michael and Rowan are in London. Michael said he would call you.” Then he was off, headed down the stairs.

Here stood Mary Jane.

What a change from the afternoon she’d come sprouting diagnoses of Rowan. But one had to remember, thought Mona, that those diagnoses had been correct.

Mary Jane’s yellow hair was hanging loose and splendid, like flax, over her shoulders, and her big breasts were poking against the tight fit of a white lace dress. There was a little mud, from the cemetery, probably, on her beige high-heeled shoes. She had a tiny, mythical Southern waist.

“Hey there, Mona, I hope this doesn’t hang you up, my being here,” she said, immediately grabbing Mona’s right hand and pumping it furiously, her blue eyes glittering as she looked down at Mona from her seemingly lofty height of about five foot eight inches in the heels. “listen, I can cut out of here any time you don’t want me. I’m no stranger to hitchhiking, I can tell you. I’ll get to Fontevrault just fine. Hey, lookie, we’re both wearing white lace, and don’t you have on the most darlin’ little smock? Hey, that’s just adorable, you look like a white lace bell with red hair. Hey, can I go out there on the front porch?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m glad to have you here,” said Mona. Her hand had been sticky from the apple, but Mary Jane hadn’t noticed.

Mary Jane was walking past her.

“You have to push up that window,” said Mona, “then duck. But this is really not a dress, it’s some kind of shirt or something.” She liked the way it floated around her. And she loved the way that Mary Jane’s skirts flared from that tiny waist.

Well, this was no time to be thinking about waists, was it?

She followed Mary Jane outside. Fresh air. River breeze.

“Later on, I can show you my computer and my stock-market picks. I’ve got a mutual fund I’ve been managing for six months, and it’s making millions. Too bad I couldn’t afford to actually buy any of the picks.”

“I hear you, darlin’,” said Mary Jane. She put her hands on the front porch railing and looked down into the street. “This is some mansion,” she said. “Yeah, it sure is.”

“Uncle Ryan points out that it is not a mansion, it is a town house, actually,” said Mona.

“Well, it’s some town house.”

“Yeah, and some town.”

Mary Jane laughed, bending her whole body backwards, and then she turned to look at Mona, who had barely stepped out on the porch.

She looked Mona up and down suddenly, as if something had made an impression on her, and then she froze, looking into Mona’s eyes.

“What is it?” asked Mona.

“You’re pregnant,” said Mary Jane.

“Oh, you’re just saying that because of this shirt or smock or whatever.”

“No, you’re pregnant.”

“Well, yeah,” said Mona. “Sure am.” This girl’s country voice was infectious. Mona cleared her throat. “I mean, everybody knows. Didn’t they tell you? It’s going to be a girl.”

“You think so?” Something was making Mary Jane extremely uneasy. By all rights, she should have enjoyed descending upon Mona and making all kinds of predictions about the baby. Isn’t that what self-proclaimed witches did?

“You get your test results back?” asked Mona. “You have the giant helix?” It was lovely up here in the treetops. Made her want to go down into the garden.

Mary Jane was actually squinting at her, and then her face relaxed a little, the tan skin without a single blemish and the yellow hair resting on her shoulders, full but sleek.

“Yeah, I have the genes all right,” said Mary Jane. “You do too, don’t you?”

Mona nodded. “Did they tell you anything else?”

“That it probably wouldn’t matter, I’d have healthy children, everybody always did in the family, ’cept for one incident about which nobody is willing to talk.”

“Hmmmmm,” said Mona. “I’m still hungry. Let’s go downstairs.”

“Yeah, well, I could eat a tree!”

Mary Jane seemed normal enough by the time they reached the kitchen, chattering about every picture and every item of furniture she saw. Seemed she’d never been
in
the house before.

“How unspeakably rude that we didn’t invite you,” said Mona. “No, I mean it. We weren’t thinking. Everybody was worried about Rowan that afternoon.”

“I don’t expect fancy invitations from anybody,” said Mary Jane. “But this place is beautiful! Look at these paintings on the walls.”

Mona couldn’t help but take pride in it, the way Michael had refurbished it, and it occurred to her suddenly, as it had upwards of fifty million times in the last week, that this house would someday be hers. Seemed it already was. But she mustn’t presume on that, now that Rowan was OK again.

Was Rowan ever going to be really OK? A flash of memory came back to her, Rowan in that sleek black silk suit, sitting there, looking at her, with the straight dark eyebrows and the big, hard, polished gray eyes.

That Michael was the father of her baby, that
she
was pregnant with a baby, that this connected her to both of them—these things suddenly jarred her.

Mary Jane lifted one of the curtains in the dining room. “Lace,” she said in a whisper. “Just the finest, isn’t it? Everything here is the best of its kind.”

“Well, I guess that’s true,” said Mona.

“And you, too,” said Mary Jane, “you look like some kind of princess, all dressed in lace. Why, we’re both dressed in lace. I just love it.”

“Thanks,” said Mona, a little flustered. “But why would somebody as pretty as you notice somebody like me?”

“Don’t be crazy,” said Mary Jane, sweeping past her into the kitchen, hips swinging gracefully, high heels clicking grandly. “You’re just a gorgeous girl. I’m pretty. I know I am. But I like to look at other girls who are pretty, always have.”

They sat together at the glass table. Mary Jane examined the plates that Eugenia set out for them, holding hers up to the light.

“Now this is real bone china,” she said. “We got some of this at Fontevrault.”

“Really, you still have those sorts of things down there?”

“Darlin’, you’d be amazed what’s in that attic. Why, there’s silver and china and old curtains and boxes of photographs. You should see all that. That attic’s real dry and warm too. Sealed tight up there. Barbara Ann used to live up there. You know who she was?”

“Yeah, Ancient Evelyn’s mother. And my great-great-grandmother.”

“Mine too!” declared Mary Jane triumphantly. “Isn’t that something.”

“Yep, sure is. Part of the entire Mayfair experience. And you should look at the family trees where it gets all crisscrossed, like if I were to marry Pierce for instance, with whom I share not only that great-great-grandmother, but also a great-grandfather, who also pops up … damn, it’s the hardest thing to keep track of. There comes a point in the life of every Mayfair when you spend about a year drawing family trees everywhere, trying just to keep it clear in your mind who is sitting next to you at the family picnic, know what I mean?”

Mary Jane nodded, eyebrows raised, lips curled in a smile. She wore a kind of smoky violet lipstick, to die for. My God, I am a woman now, Mona thought. I can wear all that junk, if I want to.

“Oh, you can borry all my things, if you want,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve got an overnight case??? You know??? Just full of cosmetics that Aunt Bea bought for me, and all
of them from Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bergdorf Goodman in New York.”

“Well, that’s very sweet of you.”
Mind reader, be careful.

Eugenia had taken some veal out of the refrigerator, little tender cuts for scallopini, which Michael had set aside for Rowan. She was frying these now, the way Michael had taught her, with sliced mushrooms and onions, already prepared, from a little plastic sack.

“God, that smells good, doesn’t it?” said Mary Jane. “I didn’t mean to read your mind, just happens.”

“I don’t care about that, it doesn’t matter. As long as we both know it’s very hit-and-miss, and easy to misunderstand.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Mary Jane.

Then she looked at Mona again, the way she had looked at her upstairs. They were sitting opposite each other, just the way that Mona and Rowan sat, only Mona was in Rowan’s place now, and Mary Jane was in Mona’s. Mary Jane had been looking at her silver fork, and suddenly she just stopped moving and narrowed her eyes again and looked at Mona.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mona. “You’re looking at me like something’s the matter.”

“Everybody just looks at you when you’re pregnant, they always do, soon as they know.”

“I know that,” said Mona. “But there’s something different in the way you’re looking at me. Other people are giving me swoony, loving looks, and looks of approbation, but you—”

“What’s approbation?”

“Approval,” said Mona.

“I got to get an education,” said Mary Jane, shaking her head. She set the fork down. “What is this silver pattern?”

“Sir Christopher,” said Mona.

“You think it’s too late for me to ever be a truly educated person?”

“No,” said Mona, “you’re too smart to let a late start discourage you. Besides, you’re already educated. You’re just educated in a different way. I’ve never been the places you’ve been. I’ve never had the responsibility.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t always want that myself. You know, I killed a man? I pushed him off a fire escape in San Francisco and he fell four stories into an alley and cracked open his head.”

“Why did you do it?”

“He was trying to hurt me. He’d shot me up with heroin and he was giving it to me and telling me that him and me were going to be lovers together. He was a goddamned pimp. I pushed him off the fire escape.”

“Did anyone come after you?”

“No,” said Mary Jane, shaking her head. “I never told that story to anybody else in this family.”

“I won’t either,” said Mona. “But that kind of strength isn’t unusual in this family. How many girls, do you think, had been turned out by this pimp? That’s the phrase for it, isn’t it?”

Eugenia was serving them and ignoring them. The veal did look OK, well browned and juicy, with a light wine sauce.