Cold Flat Junction

The next day they left. And what a leave-taking it was; it had started three days before they all piled into Lola’s station wagon and actually went. My mother was, of course, too busy doing real chores to participate in the preparation. Ree-Jane modeled her new Heather Gay Struther clothes again, and that took quite a bit of time in itself, as she’d finally bought three dresses, a pale yellow linen suit, an evening gown, and three bathing suits.

Mrs. Davidow’s preparations consisted mainly of getting in a new case of Bombay gin and one of Wild Turkey. Over the past three days, she consumed a lot of this as she discussed the route they would take and where they could stay over, while my mother fried chicken or made Angel Pie or slapped Paul away from her coconut cake. She had made the icing for this cake with real coconut, instead of Baker’s canned, giving Walter the job of shaving and shredding the two coconuts that she still had. She had been quite surprised that Lola had found coconuts in La Porte, and so was I. My mother was also surprised that the third coconut had disappeared.

Lola Davidow would follow my mother around the kitchen with a martini in one hand and a map in the other, plotting their course through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. She meant to do nearly all the driving, which I was sure the state police would like to hear in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

I knew the route as well as they did. On my own map, bought at the stationery store in town, I had marked each place Lola had said they would stop at night, the first town being Culpepper, Virginia. I wanted to feel I had some control over the trip, especially over when they hit the Tamiami Trail. I’d marked it in red.

The day before they left, Ree-Jane had found me in my favorite spot on the porch where she modeled her evening gown. She said, “This is what I’m wearing to dances.” She twirled, actually twirled, floating the light blue silk and chif fon in waves around her legs.

Then she started doing a dance step and singing, “Palm trees ... are gently swaying ... They seem to hear me saying ...” She swayed along, holding out the thin, tissue-y blue of her skirt, going back and forth, back and forth. As she was close to the top step of the porch, I was hoping she’d go over, but she didn’t.

Ree-Jane never could carry a tune, but it made me remember her phonograph. “Would it be okay if I listened to your records while you’re gone?”

“Because I like your records. They’re nice and old. Old songs are comforting.” I don’t know where that notion came from. Except maybe it was true. My mother liked to sing “Red Sails in the Sunset” sometimes, and I found that comforting.

She balanced herself and her long full skirt up on the porch railing, thinking it over. Then grudgingly she said, “Well. Seeing you have to stay here, well, I guess so. Only, don’t touch one single thing in my room!”

To think I’d pay attention to that warning only showed her ignorance. Anyway, why would I want to mess with her stuff? I’d sooner go through Walter’s belongings, which would be more interesting, I’m sure. Anyway, anything Ree-Jane owned that she thought would make me jealous she’d already shown me, so there wouldn’t be much point in rummaging through her drawers. I had, of course, no intention of sitting in her room and listening. The phonograph was to go down with me to the Pink Elephant. I needed atmosphere.

The “last time,” was, of course, the chicken-wing incident. But Ree-Jane clearly had forgotten she’d never admitted what had happened and had, instead, come back to the kitchen and said Aurora had complimented her on her beautiful self.

Then she added, with a slippery smile, “But I guess it figures, since she’s a Paradise.” Meaning all my back family was crazy.

Innocently, I asked, “Why? What did she do?” Ree-Jane wasn’t about to tell me Aurora’d thrown a chicken wing at her and called her a “blond floozy.”

Neither did I. “She does, though. She likes clothes, if you’ve noticed. And she’s got those two steamer trunks. She still hangs her clothes in them. So she really likes travel, too.”

Now, the trouble with vanity is you always want to believe something or someone so much that you’ll believe it no matter how much it’s against good sense or reason. But at this point, there was nobody left to model for. There were Will and Mill, but even Ree-Jane knew better than to try and get in the Big Garage. That place was like a fort. I was probably the only Zulu who dared even to knock on the door.

“Too bad,” I said, sighing (as though I cared), “for she likes Heather Gay Struthers clothes a lot. She’d especially like to see this blue evening gown. Her favorite song is ‘Alice Blue Gown.’ ” That was the only truth I’d told. Of course, Aurora only sings it when she’s stinking drunk, but she still is really fond of it. “Listen: I’m taking her up her lunch in a little. Why don’t you come with me?”

As I said, only a fool would have believed this, but of course, we’re talking about Ree-Jane, who finally said, “Well, all right. When?”

My mother was dishing out creamed chicken over biscuits for two of Anna Paugh’s customers and I said I could take up Aurora’s lunch. “She wants a stuffed tomato.”

My mother frowned so that her forehead took on the look of bean rows ready for planting. She pointed out that Aurora disliked stuffed tomatoes. “They’re stuffed with tuna-fish salad, and she hates tuna fish as much as the tomatoes.”

I was leaning against the countertop with my shoulders bunched, the heels of my hands pressing down as my feet did a little jig. “She changed her mind.”

My mother just looked at me, almost as suspiciously as Ree-Jane had, but when I didn’t look away, she set about getting the tomatoes from the ice box and arranging one on a little bed of salad. Then she added hot rolls and a small dish of peas. I transferred this to a tray and hotfooted it back to the front of the hotel, where Ree-Jane was waiting, flicking through one of her fashion magazines. Her blue evening gown was really very pretty. The hem was cut in a kind of zigzag, and fell over a silk underskirt. It was a beautiful shade of blue, a shade I imagined the ocean to look like, sweeping up on the Florida sands.

The last time she’d seen this tomato-stuffed-with-tuna-salad dish, Aurora had poked it around on the plate and said the Hotel Paradise was going to hell in a handbasket, serving these tomatoes. Why, if she, Aurora Paradise, were down there overseeing things, she’d have fried chicken and Angel Pie every night.

Anyway, the nice thing about the stuffed tomato was it fit your hand as good as a tennis ball. So up the stairs we went, Ree-Jane behind me, to the fourth floor.

The minute I walked into her room with the tray (I’d told Ree-Jane to wait outside) Aurora asked, “Where’s my Cold Comfort?” She seemed to think I had twenty-four-hour access to the bar in the back office. The fact I’d brought Ree-Jane instead of her cocktail would not sit well at all.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Lola Davidow wears a bottle on a chain around her neck. What’s this?” She was wearing her gray net gloves, with the fingers cut out, and she poked at the tomato. “That’s one of Jen Graham’s goddamned stuffed tomatoes!” She waggled a mittened finger at me. “You know I can’t stand these. I’m onto you, Missy!”

Aurora was a lot smarter than Ree-Jane (as Ree-Jane was about to see). I kind of fluted, “Somebody’s come to seeee youuu.” Aurora wanted visitors about as much as Will and Mill did. “Come on in, Jaaaane.”

Here came Ree-Jane, waltzing through the door, her blue chiffon skirt held in thumb and finger, spread out like a fan. She hummed and pirouetted all around Aurora’s chair—eyes closed, arms waving, as she’d done on the porch. It couldn’t have been better (or worse, depending on your point of view).

“Floozy!” Aurora’s mittened hand curled around the tomato, lifting it from the plate in that slow-motion way of awful things about to happen.

It was then my heart, which twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four yearned for Ree-Jane’s ruination, turned tail on me and fled. Ree-Jane backed away, her hands in her blond hair like the heroine on the cover of a cheap detective novel. I grabbed Aurora’s hand just as it was rearing back to let the tomato fly. It dropped from her hand, and the tuna salad plopped onto the tray as she yelled at Ree-Jane to get the hell out.

And I, really disgusted with myself, said something soppy to Ree-Jane, who had, of course, run out of the room, her face such a mottled pink above the sea-blue gown, it could have been the sun going down into the technicolor waters off Key West. Why had I stopped Aurora after all of my plotting and planning? I guess I’d felt sorry for Ree-Jane, or maybe for Ree-Jane’s dress. I did not like confusing feelings or going back on myself. It could get to the point where I’d think She’s only a poor old lady the next time Miss Bertha dumped her basket of rolls on the floor.

To shut up Aurora (who was heaving insults right and left at the Davidows) I told her I’d go down and make her a drink. On the way down the stairs—Ree-Jane had fairly flown down them and slammed the door to her room—I wondered why I felt that little drop of pity for her. I decided it wasn’t all that much of a change of heart; I figured if the blue dress had wound up covered in tuna fish, there’d be hell to pay. And I knew who would pay it. My mother was no fool.

Will and Mill joined Walter and Vera and me to see the three travelers off. Will and Mill carted all of the luggage downstairs and out to the station wagon, but it was obvious none of this registered on them. Their minds were back in the Big Garage no matter where their feet were. This was especially true of Will, who Moses himself would have sworn was up on the mountain with him when Will wasn’t even in the same country. I’ve never known anyone who could look you right in the eye and nod and not be hearing a single word. Mill wasn’t much better. His fingers moved up and down his pants leg, so you could tell he was playing the piano in his mind.

But they both called good-bye, and have a nice time, as if they meant it, and waved until the car was down at the end of the drive. Then they turned and hotfooted it back to the Big Garage.