Guests on Earth (15 page)

“Wait a minute! She’s still here? Still? After all this time?” Dixie asked.

“Oh, she’s been in and out, back and forth, of course, poor thing. She will never leave this hospital entirely, not that one. She was back here in 1943, as I recall, after her daughter got married. Now that was just too much for her, a quiet lady by then, New York City and all that, and who can blame her? A city is hard on the nerves. She stayed with us till February of 1944, that time, and was back again in 1946. I remember the date for she was here when her first grandchild was born, Tim, it was, ah, she was that excited. I remember it well. I knitted him a little yellow robe and a cap with a tassel on it and took it to her and she said, ‘God loves you, Mrs. Hodges, and I do, too.’ ”

“My goodness,” Dixie said. “She’d gotten very religious, then?”

“And is to this day, I’d expect. They all do, after a while, the mentals. It overtakes them all.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“I couldn’t rightly say, Miss,” she answered. “It’s a good question, mind you.”

“You like her, don’t you?” Dixie said. “You like her a lot better than you liked him. But I have a question for you. Let’s put her husband aside for a minute. Don’t you think Zelda was sick, then, I mean really sick? You make her sound like she wasn’t sick. “

“Oh, she was sick, all right,” Mrs. Hodges said darkly, “and she’s still sick, I’ll wager. She’ll be back, mark my words. But I don’t think she was schizophrenic, not for one bloody moment, pardon my French, I don’t. I think she didn’t fit in, that’s all, and they didn’t know what to do with her. Not her family, and not Mr. Fitzgerald either. None of them knew what to do with her. She was too smart, too or-i-gin-al. She was too wild and she drank too much and she didn’t fit in. That’s the bare bones of it. And that’s enough. That’s the case with half of them, the women that comes here. They’re too privileged, too smart . . .”

The color disappeared from Dixie’s face.

Mrs. Hodges stood up, groaning and heaving. “But you will be out of here right enough, both of you, not to worry. I can tell. I can always tell.”

“How’s that?” Dixie asked.

“Ex-per-i-ence!” she hooted. “There’s no substitute for experience, a thing they do not know, them with the little clipboards and memos and such.” She put on layer after layer of her wraps. We stood up, too.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Dixie said, recovering herself and her perfect manners. “I hope I will see you again.”

“Oh, you will, Miss. There’s no doubt about it. And in the meantime . . . the in-ter-im, mind you, why don’t you see what you can do with our poor little Evalina’s hair?”

Dixie smiled. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

“Good-bye, then.” Mrs. Hodges half smothered me in her woolen hug. “I’d best be on my way. I’ve got my duties waiting at the Grove Park Inn—you’d better believe it—with two big weddings coming right up this weekend!”

“W
HAT DID YOU
m
ean, exactly?” I asked Dixie the very next afternoon as we made our way down the sidewalk along Zillicoa Avenue to the bus stop, arms linked for balance, bundled up against the cold. I was not sure where my own coat had come from, a green wool loden that I rather liked.

She glanced sideways at me, a question on her pretty face beneath her fur-lined hood.

“What did you mean when you said that being a belle is enough to kill you, or ruin you if you survive?”

Dixie laughed her tinkly, self-deprecating laugh. “Why, I was more of a belle than anybody!” she said. “Don’t you know it? I made my debut at the Gone with the Wind Ball in Atlanta when the movie came out. They had this great big premiere.”

I stopped dead still to peer at her. “You’re kidding!” Even caught up in my own world as I had been then, I had seen the famous film; a whole gang of us from Peabody had gone down to New York on the train for it, then ended up sleeping in the station overnight because it had lasted so long—four hours!—and we had missed the last train back that evening.

“Oh yes,” Dixie went on. “I won a contest. Well, I almost won it.” She was smiling. “I was the first runner-up in the Scarlett O’Hara look-alike contest. This girl named Margaret Palmer won first place, so she got to lead the Grand March—escorted by Clark Gable and wearing one of Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett costumes from the film—but I walked right behind her.”

“Who was your escort?”

“I swear, I can’t even remember his name!” Again, the tinkly laugh. “He wasn’t a real date, I’d just met him five minutes before it started. He was the son of the lady who ran the Junior League, so it was all a put-up job. But you do see what I mean—it don’t get more belle than tha-yat!” She was using her fake, ironic Southern accent.

I had to laugh. “I guess not,” I said.

The chilly wind blew at our backs, pushing us along. Two men were up on ladders attaching Halloween decorations to the streetlights, a black cat or a witch on a broomstick beneath each globe. Holidays were taken seriously at Highland, where we celebrated everything we could.

“Good afternoon, girls!” one of the men called out. I knew he had noticed Dixie.

“Y’all be careful up there!” she called back, and we all laughed.

I envied Dixie her belle’s charm, a quality very useful in the world, I had noted, having none. In fact, this was the reason I had invited her—dragooned her, to be exact—to come along for tea with Mrs. Carroll this afternoon. I needed all the moral support I could get. The engraved notecard had been delivered to me two days ago, with its familiar handwriting, precise as calligraphy. I had been expecting it. I might as well get it over with, I knew, even though I was terrified, remembering Mrs. Hodges’s warning.

We ran for the bus and then enjoyed the long ride up Merriman Avenue past Beaver Lake to an exclusive-looking neighborhood. I was not surprised to find the Carrolls’ large home one of the most imposing, all glass and dark wood in the modern style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The huge door flew open just as I lifted the heavy brass knocker.

Mrs. Carroll had been waiting.

“Evalina! My little Evalina! My dear! I am so glad to see you. Come in, come in—” Here was a new tack; all her former coldness and disapproval seemed to have vanished overnight. Mrs. Carroll had dressed to the nines for this mandatory occasion, in a tailored midnight blue wool suit with a diamond brooch and earrings—and of course, the ever-present high heels, her legs still beautiful in sheer silk stockings. Her pale blonde hair was perfectly coiffed in a new, bobbed fashion; her makeup was flawless.

I should not have worried so, I realized then, nor expected less; for above all, Mrs. Carroll was a public person, as was Dr. Carroll himself. Appearances would be kept up, civility maintained.

“And I am so very glad to see you!” I had practiced saying this again and again in my room before leaving. “Please let me introduce my good friend, Dixie Calhoun, who is also a patient at Highland—”

“A guest,” Mrs. Carroll interjected.

“. . . a guest at Highland as well,” I concluded.

Dixie offered her hand and inclined her head in a little bow. “Oh Mrs. Carroll, I have seen you play the piano, and I have heard so much about you and Dr. Carroll, and I am just so happy to make your acquaintance at last. It is a real honor!” The hundred-watt smile, the widening of the violet eyes that said, Yes. You. You are special.

Mrs. Carroll narrowed her own eyes ever so slightly, registering Dixie, as she smiled back. “Well, my goodness, it is so lovely to have you both here on such a cold, dreary afternoon. Come in, come in, let’s just hang up your coats right here in the hall so that they can dry out, and you must come in and sit by the fire . . .” leading the way into the drawing room.

“Oh heavens, what gorgeous roses!” Dixie exclaimed, for there they were, the famous yellow roses, beautifully arranged on their round marble top table. Inadvertently I wondered what Robert’s tally would be now, after ten more years? How many roses, how many thousands of dollars . . . a fortune in roses. So many roses, so much love—or perhaps not. For if I had learned anything at Highland in my youth, it was how mysterious love is in all its ways, its guises and disguises. In fact, I had loved the Carrolls deeply, and I thought they had loved me . . . I had believed that they loved me . . . but perhaps not. In my mind’s eye, I saw the cast of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” disappearing into the forest, only to reemerge all changed and new, shining and smiling, each with a new partner.

The special drop-leaf table had been brought in and laid for tea, which Mrs. Carroll poured from a silver teapot into fragile rose china cups, meanwhile entranced by Dixie who oohed and ahhed over all the beautiful and unusual furnishings and art. Mrs. Carroll told about purchasing the carousel clock on their honeymoon in Italy forty years ago, and how the African masks had been presented to her, a gift, after a concert in Johannesburg. We sat before a leaping fire that crackled merrily behind a most unusual fire screen, a golden peacock spreading its wings. Now that was new, I believed, wondering where it had come from, and with what miraculous story attached. I glanced all about the spacious room searching for the crystal Viennese punchbowl, which had disappeared from its spot on the sideboard.

Noticing my silence Ms. Carroll turned to me. “And how are you, Evalina?” she inquired kindly. “Beginning to feel better, I trust?”

To my horror, I suddenly collapsed into wracking sobs. “Oh, Mrs. Carroll, I’m sorry, I’m just so sorry—” I upset my teacup onto the pink linen tablecloth. Dixie leapt up to rectify the damage with her own napkin, while Mrs. Carroll came over and knelt to hug me. I stiffened instinctively; she had not touched me in many years.

“Now then, dry those big eyes, dear.” Mrs. Carroll dabbed at them herself. “Your eyes have always been your best feature, you know.”

They had? I didn’t think I’d ever had a best feature.

Mrs. Carroll touched my cheek and gave my shoulders another squeeze before returning to her chair, where she crossed her legs at the ankle and composed herself again. She fixed her regard upon me directly. “It is not the end of the world, you know. You are not the first, my dear, nor shall you be the last, to have an adventure. Even I—even I—” but here she stopped herself, and poured the last of the tea all around. “Of course you must have been to Europe, as well,” she said, turning to Dixie, who launched into a description of her own art tour in France, with private sketching lessons and lectures at the Louvre.

I sat looking into the fire—an adventure, rather than a debacle?

Mrs. Carroll seemed genuinely kind now, no longer jealous or competitive, perhaps because I had turned out to be such a failure. And who knew? Perhaps she had had a European adventure herself, perhaps Dr. C had saved her from something, too, perhaps even from herself. There must be some reason she had stayed at Highland with him instead of seeking out the fame and fortune that clearly could have been hers. For the first time I saw the battlements of Homewood as a fort instead of a castle, though I also remembered what Mrs. Fitzgerald had said about the princess in the tower. But now, at Dixie’s urging, Mrs. Carroll was enumerating the famous people in the framed photographs on the piano, including herself with the great Busoni, beside the Danube. Looking at the dark, polished Steinway, it seemed improbable to me that I had once played four-hand arrangements on it with her, “Mountain Tune” and Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze.”

“And this is one of my own students, the jazz singer Nina Simone. She is making quite a name for herself.” Mrs. Carroll held up a framed photograph of the little girl I had played for, now all grown up and beautiful.

“Dixie made her debut at the Gone with the Wind Ball in Atlanta,” I blurted out.

“Really!” Mrs. Carroll focused her formidable attention upon Dixie. “And did you see Clark Gable?”

“I danced with him,” Dixie said. “But he couldn’t get very close to me because of my hoop skirts, nobody could—”

Mrs. Carroll put the picture of Nina Simone back on top off the piano, then drew Dixie down upon the curvy horsehair loveseat. “Describe your dress,” she breathed.

“Well, it was a rose taffeta evening gown with jet beading at the neckline. The skirt went over crinoline petticoats and hoops and it was trimmed with black velvet bows and black net lace and streamers all around. Oh, and I wore jet earrings, too, and a black velvet ribbon around my neck, this was all my idea. And I wore my flowers in my hair.”

“What kind of flowers?”

“Camellias. I didn’t want to wear a hat,” she added. “A lot of the girls wore big hats.”

Mrs. Carroll had her eyes closed. “No,” she said. “Quite right. Not for evening. And what did your mother wear?”

“My mother wasn’t there,” Dixie said simply.

We both stared at her.

“Oh, but there were fifty of us, the debutantes,” she said. “We sat up on stage before the dancing began, with our escorts standing behind us. We filled up the whole stage! And Vivian Leigh wore a special gown that the costume designer for the movie had created just for her to wear to the Gone with the Wind Ball, though I didn’t like it much. It had cap sleeves made of feathers, if you can imagine that! She looked as though she might just fly away.” Dixie rattled on, with all Mrs. Carroll’s attention trained upon her like a spotlight. I found this to be a relief, I realized, rather than a loss—perhaps I could get out of my role now, in this cast in this play that I had never auditioned for in the first place, for I had never, ever, wanted to be a star. While Mrs. Carroll and Dixie talked on—vividly, exaggeratedly—I looked around the room until I spotted the crystal Viennese punchbowl sitting at the foot of the petticoat mirror, filled with little hand puppets. From Czechoslovakia, I guessed.

A
S WE WERE
l
eaving, Mrs. Carroll pressed a packet into my hands, wrapped in newspaper, tied firmly with twine.

“What a character! What an old bat!” Dixie said the minute the door had closed behind us.

I started laughing and couldn’t stop as we ran down Merriman Avenue to catch the bus. It was already dark by the time we reached the Highland stop.