Liberating Paris Read online

  Then, the final indignity occurred when Judith Nutter decreed that Muzak would be played over the public address system every day from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M., providing “a positive and cheerful environment for visitors as well as staff and residents.” For Margaret Delaney, that was it. She had been willing to overlook the condescending attitude, the silly menus, marginal health care, and confusing meal names. But for someone who had once set her students on fire by teaching James Joyce to the accompaniment of Mozart, this was simply too much!

  That was why, just as Rudy was putting in Jeter’s last mouthful of cereal, Miss Delaney had leapt to her feet, climbed up on a folding chair, and shouted at the top of her lungs, “I cannot endure another minute of this insufferable, mind-numbing Muzak! Someone has got to stop management from killing us with this…this artificial sweetener for the soul! Pleasant Valley Corporation of America and all of its subsidiaries, rot in hell!”

  Mr. Henry Dill woke up.

  Mr. and Mrs. Harold Chapman moved closer together, frightened.

  Miss Phipps clapped her hands with glee.

  Jeter and Rudy looked at each other and smiled.

  Miss Delaney sat back down.

  Elizabeth was resplendent in no makeup, a winter-white turtleneck sweater, and jeans. She and Mavis had just filled their plates at the Motor Harbor’s $5.95 all-you-can-eat buffet and were now seated.

  Mavis said, “That’s what I love about this town. No pesky maître d’s, no specials du jour; just come on in and troll the pig trough.”

  Elizabeth laughed. Then, even though it was still breakfast, Mavis fortified herself with some wine. After several glasses, she said, “So, you poor little ol’ homely girl, you’re gonna beat me to the altar, huh?”

  “Well, I, I—”

  “That’s a joke, darlin’. I’m not even in the race anymore.” “Darlin’” was the one southern word Mavis had allowed herself to appropriate, but she still felt odd saying it.

  Elizabeth took her hand, “Aunt Mavis, I never expected this to happen. It’s like, there’s this chimie mysterieuse between us.”

  Mavis attempted nonchalance. “Mysterious chemistry? That does sound serious.” There was a long pause as she stared at Elizabeth, then, “Listen, jelly bean, I’ve got something to tell you. I don’t believe it’s gonna make any difference, but I think you should know.” Mavis steeled herself. “Your father dated, and that’s ‘dated’ with a hard ‘D,’ Luke’s mother, you know, in high school and,” her voice trailed off, “maybe a little of college.”

  Elizabeth was taken aback. “You’re kidding. I knew she was from around here, but…why didn’t Luke say something?

  “My guess is, he probably doesn’t know. You haven’t met her yet?”

  “No, just on the phone.” Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, then, “I can’t believe this. I just don’t get why nobody mentioned it.”

  Mavis stumbled. “Probably…not sure how you would…feel.”

  “Well, I don’t know how I feel. It’s okay, I guess, I mean, it’s kind of weird.” Elizabeth searched Mavis’s face, then, “How serious were they?”

  Mavis told Elizabeth the answer with her eyes.

  “Okay. Don’t wanna know.” Elizabeth sat absorbing this. Then, using her grandfather’s pet name for Milan, “So what does Italy think?”

  “She just wants you to be happy.”

  “Italy wants me to be happy with the son of my dad’s ex-girlfriend?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Are we talking about the same country here?”

  “Look, Lils, I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s gonna take some getting used to. But the important thing is what you and…” Mavis searched for the name.

  “Luke.”

  “Right. What the two of you want.” Then Mavis added, “You know you’re my baby, too. And I do just have to throw in here that I think this is a little fast.”

  “I know!” Elizabeth let out her breath. “Can you believe it? It’s outrageous. I’m surprised more people aren’t trying to stop it.”

  “Do you want us to?”

  “No. I wouldn’t listen. I’m much too in love”

  “Well, I, for one, can’t wait to meet this person.”

  “Okay, but if you don’t like him, you’ll just have to pretend, because I can’t give him up now. And don’t worry, I’m not gonna make you give me a bridal shower and find out how many words people can make out of Mrs. Luke Childs.”

  “Thank you. You’ll be in my will.”

  Then, regarding her empty glass, “God, this truck stop wine is brutal.”

  Elizabeth lit up. “No wonder we were so attracted. It’s in our genes, like fate! Is that possible?”

  “No.”

  “I just love you so much. This is going to be the coolest summer. It won’t just be a wedding, it’ll be like a reunion, too!”

  Mavis worked hard to keep the pain out of her smile. “Yeah. Kind of.”

  Charlie was firing baskets through a hoop in the McIlmores’ driveway as Wood finished loading Elizabeth’s suitcase into the back of her Mustang. P. Diddy’s “You Gets No Love” was playing on Charlie’s jambox. Wood followed his daughter to the driver’s side and hugged her hard. Then he held Elizabeth away from him.

  “I want to meet this boy, now.”

  “You will. He says he takes after his mother…” Elizabeth decided to fish. “Kinda like I take after you.”

  “Well, he must be a very fine fella.” Wood opened the car door.

  She decided to try again, “Did you love her?”

  There was a brief moment as father and daughter understood each other.

  “Elizabeth, that was a long time ago. Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Then studying her father’s face, “You did! Does Mother know?”

  Wood’s voice became more firm. “Go on now. Get in the car.”

  Elizabeth spoke as she did so, “Why does everyone act so weird about this? I thought it was a long time ago.”

  Wood closed the door and leaned his head in a little. “Listen, Ace, these next few years—it’s the most alive you’re ever gonna feel. Don’t waste one minute worrying about some silly thing like that.” He kissed her cheek, then, “All you need to know is how stuck your mom and I are on you.”

  Swish. Charlie made a basket from far away. Wood smiled, pleased, then returned to Elizabeth. “And ol’ Charlie-boy over there. Remember when you tried to sell him to June for a quarter?”

  Elizabeth smiled a little in spite of herself. She knew better than to push Wood once he had decided not to talk about something. “I love you, Daddy.”

  Wood looked straight at her. “You’re it for me, kid. You and Charlie. You’re the whole deal.” He stepped away from the car. “Drive careful now.”

  “I will.” Elizabeth backed the Mustang out of the driveway a little too fast and screeched the tires as she pulled away. “Bye, Charlie-horse. Stay out of my clothes and makeup!”

  Charlie rolled his eyes as Elizabeth’s car disappeared. Then he turned to Wood and began dribbling the basketball all around him. “Hey, Dad, go for it.”

  Wood grabbed the ball and went in for a jump shot. He missed. Charlie grinned, shaking his head. “Oh, man, you’re gettin’ old.”

  “You got that right, son.” Wood headed toward the house. “You got that right.”

  Charlie’s eyes followed his dad through the front door, a little puzzled. P. Diddy droned on, “…whatever you do will come back to you…”

  Twelve patients were waiting to see Dr. Wood McIlmore as he stood in the middle of his reception area handing a bottle of pills to one of them.

  “This ought to bring the fever down. But if it doesn’t, you call me at home tonight.”

  “Thanks, Dr. McIlmore.”

  Wood crossed to a man in his seventies. “How you doing there, Mr. Tibb? Is that hip bothering you again?

  “It ain’t just my hip, Doc. Ever’thing hurts.”

  “It
’s a heckuva way to live, isn’t it? You just give me a few minutes, and then we’re gonna sit down and figure out how we can make things better for you.”

  “All right.”

  Wood steered another patient toward a nurse, “Joanne, you want to go with Mike there?” Then, turning to Mike, “Get her vitals and current meds.” He picked up a little girl who was waiting with her mother. Mae Ethel had passed more than ten years ago, but Wood still saw all her children and grandchildren gratis. “Okay, who ate all my little peanut butter cups? Was that you, Elizabeth Brown?”

  She nodded.

  Wood said, “Well, all right, as long as it was you. I just wanted to make sure it was somebody I like and admire.”

  Just as Wood, the child, and her mother disappeared into an adjacent office, Mavis burst through the front door.

  “I just came by to tell you all that while I was riding in the procession yesterday, I was accosted in an incredibly ugly manner by Smith Dunlop, who against all odds, continues to operate full tilt on that one defective brain cell. Now, my question for you is, how the hell did he find out that I am even interested in having a baby, much less looking for a sperm donor?” Suddenly, Mavis noticed the other patients staring. “Do you mind? We’re trying to have a private conversation here!”

  Wood’s nurse said, “Mavis, we haven’t told anyone—”

  “Well, then, how else did it get out?”

  The receptionist offered, “I heard you telling two people in the Piggly Wiggly myself.”

  It was impossible to know whether it was the cheap wine or the receptionist’s tone, but now Mavis was even madder. “That is so absurd. I never socialize in the Piggly Wiggly. I hate that damn name and I don’t even go there unless Kroger is out of something. Just give me my file.”

  Mavis sailed around the reception area, upsetting everyone. One of the nurses tried to block her.

  “You can’t come in here! Anyway, that isn’t even where we keep patient files.”

  Mavis headed for a cabinet. “I know. It’s the ‘Looking for Mr. Sperm Donor’ drawer.” She opened it and began rifling through the folders. “And I want my name out before anyone else sees it!” Mavis grabbed a file and then, for a moment, appeared startled. “Carl Jeter? What the hell’s he doing in here?”

  One of the nurses threw up her arms. “I don’t believe this. You worry about your own privacy but you don’t respect anyone else’s. Get out!”

  Wood emerged from the inner office. “What’s going on?”

  Mavis planted her feet firmly in his carpet, waving her file in the air. “I’ll tell you what’s going on! No matter how hard you try, nothing in this damn town is ever confidential! Which is why I’m getting my records and keeping them myself. And if one more word gets out about my personal reproductive information, I will hold everyone in this office responsible.” She turned to the waiting patients, “And that goes for all of you, too!”

  Mavis stomped her size-ten feet across the reception area and out the door, slamming it. There was a long pause while nobody said anything. Then, an elderly man, who was hard of hearing, yelled, “What’s her problem?”

  His wife answered sincerely, “Reproductive inflammation.”

  Wood shook his head and went back in his office.

  A long silence was now in progress, the kind that comes from having a conversation that keeps hitting the same old snag. Mavis had her back to Jeter, arms stubbornly folded, staring out the window of his tiny room. Jeter pretended to watch a rerun of Bewitched as he sipped Dr Pepper through a long, clear straw.

  Mavis tried again. “I just don’t understand. Why would you keep something like that from me?”

  “I wasn’t keeping it from you. I never thought about it,” Jeter said, his eyes fixed on the TV.

  “All these months, I’ve been looking through these sperm donor catalogs, and you never once thought to mention that you yourself had some ‘on file’?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told you, it was a hundred years ago. Anyway, I’m sure they threw it out by now.” Then, trying to make her smile, “Or maybe they sent it to the genius sperm bank. You should check there.”

  “You didn’t mention it because you thought I would be interested.”

  He looked at her a good while, then, “Well, you are, aren’t you?”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  “Yes, you are. Because it’s logical. I was reasonably good-looking in my original state. I had the highest SAT scores in our class and there’s no hair on my back.”

  Mavis did not smile. Then she said evenly, “That stuff has a very long shelf life.”

  Jeter matched her resolve, measuring each word for effect, “I don’t want kids.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because when we play ball, I would have trouble sliding into home plate.”

  “I want a real answer.”

  Jeter was getting impatient. “It wasn’t my idea, okay? It was way after I got hurt. Dr. Mac had a friend at some sperm bank, so I said, ‘Hey, what the hell, maybe someday I’ll want a couple of little hockey pucks.’ But as it turns out, I don’t.”

  Neither of them said anything. Then he added, “Why do you want to be a mother anyway? Have you forgotten that you didn’t have a single doll with a head on it?”

  Mavis glared at him. Then she gathered her giant, carpetbag purse and crossed to the door. “Don’t worry about it…It’s just as well. I think we already have all the little assholes we need in this world.”

  Jeter smiled. “Yeah. That, too.”

  She left without saying good-bye or closing the door. An old man was groaning down the hall. Jeter went back to his long straw and the TV.

  CHAPTER 9

  Several pages of the Paris Beacon drifted like tumbleweed along the sidewalk nobody walked down anymore. Tommy Epps, wearing one of Brundidge’s good raincoats with some old sweatpants and raggedy tennis shoes, was busy painting graffiti on the side of Falkoff’s.

  Tommy was a Vietnam veteran. But unlike the stereotype, he did not become homeless or mentally unbalanced because of his service. He had mental disorders before he was drafted and people said he should never have been in the army at all. Dr. Mac even wrote a letter to that effect, but Tommy’s parents were poor and he somehow fell through the cracks. He endured two full years in Southeast Asia, and managed to return home upright, without distinguishing himself by being either wounded or decorated. Marcus West’s older brother, Lionel, who served with Tommy, said that already being crazy before he went is probably what saved him.

  A talented artist, Tommy now spent his days painting murals on Main Street. At night, he slept in the maintenance room of the nursing home. He loved to paint buildings on top of buildings, and doors and windows and curtains where there were none. And he often mixed the real live residents of Paris with his favorite car models and cartoon characters. There was considerable controversy about letting Tommy paint over all the abandoned stores downtown. Purists said they should be left just as they were. Others felt that Tommy’s art made it all seem less depressing. And the more literary types said there was authentic symbolism at work here—that as the town slowly disappeared, Tommy was putting the people back in. But that was only partially true. While he did paint large portraits of Main Street’s notables, they were rarely depicted on their own stores and they were almost never doing anything that made sense. For example, there was a wonderful twelve-foot likeness of Lena Farnham Stokes, the former haberdasher, painted on the side of Arkansas Tire and Supply. But she was sitting hatless, on a Pontiac GTO with her legs crossed, talking to Spiderman.

  Tommy stepped back from his painting and nodded, as though he were agreeing with himself about something. Almost every storefront in his immediate vicinity and across the street was now in some stage of neglect and disrepair. Gone was any discussion of heroic measures to save them, any chance of unexpected angels stepping in on their behalf. There were still a few death rattles h
ere and there, some final gasps of “Everything Must Go,” but for the most part, large sections of the street were quiet now. Unlike houses, where all sorts of depressing and harsh words were sometimes exchanged, these buildings had been inhabited by people bent on showing their most amiable natures, on putting their finest selves forward in the marketplace of ideas and personalities. But, except for Mavis Pinkerton and Earl Brundidge and a precious few others, those people had disappeared. And the walls of their stores now stood like lovely old frames—the pictures they once encased forever lost—moving pictures that testified to the truths of Main Street. People could be cruel and petty and even deadly—but here, they had mostly been the best that human beings can ever be.

  Perhaps those who never set foot in such a place didn’t understand its value. But for those who had once been a part of it, and for some in the little town of Paris, nothing would erase from their minds the blazing goodness and optimism that had once flourished here.

  Wood, Brundidge, and Jeter were now coming down the sidewalk, not far from where Tommy was working. When Brundidge saw what he was wearing, he cussed under his breath and shook his head. “Look at that! Do you believe that? I’m not giving him another one of my shirts if he’s gonna wear it with sorry shit like that.” Brundidge had given Tommy numerous articles of designer clothing over the years. And the fact that the eccentric street artist mixed them haphazardly made Brundidge crazy.

  When they got close, Brundidge said, “Tommy, what the hell have you got on? Where’s those brown corduroy pants I gave you? That’s what you should have on with that raincoat.”