I didnt reply. I was speechless.
What you did with Mike Coslawwhat you did for Mike Coslawwas the most amazing and wonderful thing Ive ever seen.
Mimi, it wasnt me. Hes just naturally tal
I know hes naturally talented, that was obvious from the moment he walked onstage and opened his mouth, but Ill tell you something, my friend. Something forty years in high schools and sixty years of living has taught me and taught me well. Artistic talent is far more common than the talent to nurture artistic talent. Any parent with a hard hand can crush it, but to nurture it is much more difficult. Thats a talent you have, and in much greater supply than the one that drove this. She tapped the sheaf of pages on the coffee table in front of her.
I dont know what to say.
Say thank you, and compliment me on my acute judgment.
Thanks. And your insight is only exceeded by your good looks.
That brought the smile back, dryer than ever. Dont exceed your brief, George.
Yes, Miz Mimi.
The smile disappeared. She leaned forward. The blue eyes behind her glasses were too big, swimming in her face. The skin under her tan was yellowish, and her formerly taut cheeks were hollow. When had this happened? Had Deke noticed? But that was ridic, as the kids said. Deke wouldnt notice that his socks were mismatched until he took them off at night. Probably not even then.
She said, Phil Bateman is no longer just threatening to retire, hes done pulled the pin and tossed the grenade, as our delightful Coach Borman would say. Which means theres a vacancy on the English faculty. Come and teach full-time at DCHS, George. The kids like you, and after the junior-senior play, the community thinks youre the second coming of Alfred Hitchcock. Deke is just waiting to see your applicationhe told me so just last night. Please. Publish this under a pseudonym, if you have to, but come and teach. Thats what you were meant to do.
I wanted badly to say yes, because she was right. My job wasnt writing books, and it certainly wasnt killing people, no matter how much they deserved killing. And there was Jodie. Id come to it as a stranger who had been displaced from his home era as well as his hometown, and the first words spoken to me hereby Al Stevens, at the dinerhad been friendly words. If youve ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, youll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be. Jodie was the anti-Dallas, and now one of its leading citizens was asking me to be a resident instead of a visitor. But the watershed moment was approaching. Only it wasnt here yet. Maybe
George? You have the most peculiar look on your face.
Thats called thinking. Will you let me do it, please?
She put her hands to her cheeks and rounded her mouth in a comic O of apology. Well braid my hair and call me Buckwheat.
I paid no attention, because I was busy flicking through Als notes. I no longer had to look at them to do that. When the new school year started in September, Oswald was still going to be in Russia, although he had already started what would be a lengthy paperwork battle to get back to America with his wife and daughter, June, with whom Marina would be pregnant any day now. It was a battle Oswald would eventually win, playing one superpower bureaucracy off against the other with instinctive (if rudimentary) cleverness, but they wouldnt step off the SS Maasdam and onto American soil until the middle of next year. And as for Texas
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Meems, the school year usually ends the first week in June, doesnt it?
Always. The kids who need summer jobs have to nail them down.
as for Texas, the Oswalds were going to arrive on the fourteenth of June, 1962.
And any teaching contract I signed would be probationary, right? As in one year?
With an option to renew if all parties are satisfied, yes.
Then youve got yourself a probationary English teacher.
She laughed, clapped her hands, got to her feet, and held her arms out. Marvelous! Huggies for Miz Mimi!
I hugged her, then released her quickly when I heard her gasp. What the hell is wrong with you, maam?
She went back to the couch, picked up her iced coffee, and sipped. Let me give you two pieces of advice, George. The first is never call a Texas woman maam if you come from the northern climes. It sounds sarcastic. The second is never ask any woman what the hell is wrong with her. Try something slightly more delicate, like Are you feeling quite all right?
Are you?
Why wouldnt I? Im getting married.
At first I couldnt match this particular zig with a corresponding zag. Except the grave look in her eyes suggested she wasnt zigging at all. She was circling something. Probably not a nice something, either.
Say Congratulations, Miz Mimi.
Congratulations, Miz Mimi.
Deke first popped the question almost a year ago. I put him off, saying it was too soon after his wife died, and it would cause talk. As time passes, that has become less effective as an argument. I doubt if there would have been all that much talk, anyway, given our ages. People in small towns realize that folks like Deke and me cant afford the luxury of decorum quite so much once we reach a certain, shall we say, plateau of maturity. Truth is, I liked things fine just the way they were. The old fella loves me quite a lot more than I love him, but I like him plenty, andat the risk of embarrassing youeven ladies whove reached a certain plateau of maturity arent averse to a nice boink on a Saturday night. Am I embarrassing you?
No, I said. Actually, youre delighting me.
The dry smile. Lovely. Because when I swing my feet out of bed in the morning, my first thought as they hit the floor is, Might there be a way I can delight George Amberson today? And if so, how shall I go about it?
Dont exceed your brief, Miz Mimi.
Spoken like a man. She sipped her iced coffee. I had two objectives when I came here today. Ive accomplished the first. Now Ill move on to the second so you can get on with your day. Deke and I are going to be married on July twenty-first, which is a Friday. The ceremony will be a small private affair in his homejust us, the preacher, and a few family members. His parentstheyre quite vigorous for dinosaursare coming from Alabama and my sister from San Diego. The reception will be a lawn party at my house the following day. Two P.M. until drunk oclock. Were inviting almost everyone in town. Theres going to be a piñata and lemonade for the little kiddies, barbecue and kegs of beer for the big kiddies, and even a band from San-Antone. Unlike most bands from San-Antone, I believe they are able to play Louie Louie as well as La Paloma. If you dont favor us with your presence
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Youll be bereft?
Indeed I will. Will you save the date?
Absolutely.
Good. Deke and I will be leaving for Mexico on Sunday, by which time his hangover will have dissipated. Were a little old for a honeymoon, but there are certain resources available south of the border that are not available in the Sixgun State. Certain experimental treatments. I doubt if they work, but Deke is hopeful. And hell, its worth a try. Life She gave a rueful sigh. Life is too sweet to give up without a fight, dont you think?
Yes, I said.
Yes. So one holds on. She looked at me closely. Are you going to cry, George?
No.
Good. Because that would embarrass me. I might even cry myself, and I dont do it well. No one would ever write a poem about my tears. I croak.
How bad is it? May I ask?
Quite bad. She said it offhandedly. I might have eight months. Possibly a year. Assuming the herbal treatments or peach pits or whatever down Mexico way dont effect a magical cure, that is.
Im very sorry to hear it.
Thank you, George. Expressed to a nicety. Any more would be sloppy.
I smiled.
I have another reason for inviting you to our reception, although it goes without saying that your charming company and sparkling repartee would be enough. Phil Bateman isnt the only one whos retiring.
Mimi, dont do that. Take a leave of absence if you have to, but
She shook her head decisively. Sick or well, forty years is enough. Its time for younger hands, younger eyes, and a younger mind. On my recommendation, Deke has hired a well-qualified young lady from Georgia. Her name is Sadie Clayton. Shell be at the reception, shell know absolutely no one, and I expect you to be especially nice to her.
Mrs. Clayton?
I wouldnt quite say that. Mimi looked at me guilelessly. I believe she intends to reclaim her maiden name at some point in the near future. Following certain legal formalities.
Mimi, are you matchmaking?
Not at all, she said then snickered. Hardly at all. Although you will be the only teacher on the English faculty whos currently unattached, and that makes you a natural to act as her mentor.
I thought that a gigantic leap into illogic, especially for such an ordered mind, but I accompanied her to the door without saying so. What I said was, If its as serious as you say, you should be seeking treatment now. And not from some quack doctor in Juaréz, either. You should be at the Cleveland Clinic. I didnt know if the Cleveland Clinc even existed yet, but just then I didnt care.
I think not. Given the choice between dying in a hospital room somewhere, stuck full of tubes and wires, and dying in a seaside Mexican hacienda that is, as you like to say, a no-brainer. And theres something else, as well. She looked at me unflinchingly. The pain isnt too bad yet, but Im told it will be. In Mexico, they are far less apt to strike moral poses about large doses of morphine. Or Nembutal, if it comes to that. Trust me, I know what Im doing.
Based on what had happened to Al Templeton, I guessed that was true. I put my arms around her, this time hugging very gently. I kissed one leathery cheek.
She bore it with a smile, then slipped away. Her eyes searched my face. Id like to know your story, my friend.
I shrugged. Im an open book, Miz Mimi.
She laughed. What a crock of shit. You say youre from Wisconsin, but you showed up in Jodie with a New England drawl in your mouth and Florida plates on your auto. You say youre commuting to Dallas for research purposes, and your manuscript purports to be about Dallas, but the people in it speak like New Englanders. In fact, there are a couple of places where characters actually say ayuh. You might want to change those.
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And I thought my rewrite had been so clever.
Actually, Mimi, New Englanders say it a-yuh, not i-yuh.
Noted. She continued to search my face. It was a struggle not to drop my eyes, but I managed. Sometimes Ive actually caught myself wondering if you might not be a space alien, like Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Here to analyze the natives and report back to Alpha Centauri on whether theres still hope for us as a species or if we should be exploded by plasma rays before we can spread our germs to the rest of the galaxy.
Thats very fanciful, I said, smiling.
Good. Id hate to think our whole planet was being judged by Texas.
If Jodie were used as a sample, Im sure Earth would get a passing grade.
You like it here, dont you?
Yes.
Is George Amberson your real name?
No. I changed it for reasons that are important to me but wouldnt be to anyone else. Id prefer you kept that to yourself. For obvious reasons.
She nodded. I can do that. Ill see you around, George. The diner, the library and at the party, of course. Youll be nice to Sadie Clayton, wont you?
Nice as pie, I said, giving it the Texas twist: pah. That made her laugh.
When she was gone, I sat in my living room for a long time, not reading, not watching TV. And working on either of my manuscripts was the farthest thing from my mind. I thought about the job Id just agreed to: a year of teaching full-time English at Denholm Consolidated High School, home of the Lions. I decided I had no regrets. I could roar at halftime with the best of them.
Well, I did have one regret, but it wasnt for me. When I thought about Mimi and her current situation, I had regrets aplenty.
6
On the subject of love at first sight, Im with the Beatles: I believe that it happens all the time. But it didnt happen that way for me and Sadie, although I held her the first time I met her, and with my right hand cupping her left breast. So I guess Im also with Mickey and Sylvia, who said love is strange.
South-central Texas can be savagely hot in mid-July, but the Saturday of the post-wedding party was damned near perfect, with temperatures in the upper seventies and lots of fat white clouds hustling across a sky the color of faded overalls. Long shutters of sun and shadow slipped down Mimis backyard, which was on a mild slope ending at a muddy trickle of water she called Nameless Crick.
There were streamers of yellow and silverDenholm Highs colorsstrung from the trees, and there was indeed a piñata, hung temptingly low from the jutting branch of a sugar pine. No child passed near it without giving it a longing glance.
After dinner, the kidsll get sticks and beat away on it, someone said from just behind my left shoulder. Candy and toys for all the niños.
I turned and beheld Mike Coslaw, resplendent (and a little hallucinatory) in tight black jeans and a white open-throated shirt. A sombrero on a tug-string hung down on his back, and he wore a multicolored sash around his waist. I saw a number of other football players, including Jim LaDue, dressed in the same semi-ridiculous manner, circulating with trays. Mike held his out with a slightly crooked smile. Canapé, Señor Amberson?
I took a baby shrimp on a toothpick, and dipped it in the sauce. Nice getup. Kind of a Speedy Gonzales thing.
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Dont start. If you want to see a real getup, check Vince Knowles. He pointed beyond the net to where a group of teachers was playing a clumsy but enthusiastic game of volleyball. I beheld Vince dressed up in tails and a top hat. He was surrounded by fascinated children who were watching him pull scarves out of thin air. It worked well, if you were still young enough to miss the one poking out of his sleeve. His shoe-polish mustache gleamed in the sun.
On the whole, I prefer the Cisco Kid look, Mike said.
Im sure you all make terrific waiters, but who in Gods name persuaded you to dress up? And does Coach know?
He ought to, hes here.
Oh? I havent seen him.
Hes over by the barbecue pit, gettin hammered with the Boosters Club. As for the outfit Miz Mimi can be pretty persuasive.
I thought of the contract Id signed. I know.
Mike lowered his voice. We all know shes sick. Besides I think of this as acting. He struck a bullfighter posenot easy when youre carrying a tray of canapés. ¡Arriba!
Not bad, but
I know, Im not really inside the part yet. Gotta submerge myself, right?
It works for Brando. How are you guys gonna be this fall, Mike?
Senior year? Jim in the pocket? Me, Hank Alvarez, Chip Wiggins, and Carl Crockett on the line? Were going to State, and that gold balls going into the trophy case.
I like your attitude.
Are you going to do a play this fall, Mr. Amberson?
Thats the plan.
Good. Great. Save me a part but with football, itll have to be a small one. Check out the band, theyre not bad.
The band was a lot better than not bad. The logo on the snare drum proclaimed them The Knights. The teenage lead singer counted off, and the band launched into a hot version of Ooh, My Head, the old Ritchie Valens songand not really so old in the summer of 61, although Valens had been dead for almost two years.
I got my beer in a paper cup and walked closer to the bandstand. The kids voice was familiar. So was the keyboard, which sounded like it desperately wanted to be an accordion. And suddenly it clicked. The kid was Doug Sahm, and not so many years from now he would have hits of his own: Shes About a Mover for one, Mendocino for another. That would be during the British Invasion, so the band, which basically played Tejano rock, would take a pseudo-British name: The Sir Douglas Quintet.
George? Come here and meet someone, would you?
I turned. Mimi was coming down the slope of the lawn with a woman in tow. My first impression of Sadieeveryones first impression, I have no doubtwas her height. She was wearing flats, as were most of the women here, knowing that theyd be spending the afternoon and evening traipsing around outside, but this was a woman who had probably last worn heels to her own wedding, and even for that occasion she might have picked a dress that would hide just one more pair of low-or no-heels, chosen so she wouldnt tower comically over the groom as they stood at the altar. She was six feet at least, maybe a little more. I still had her by at least three inches, but other than Coach Borman and Greg Underwood of the History Department, I was probably the only man at the party who did. And Greg was a beanpole. Sadie had, in the argot of the day, a really good built. She knew it and was self-conscious about it rather than proud. I could tell that from the way she walked.
I know Im a little too big to be considered normal, that walk said. The set of her shoulders said more: Its not my fault, I just growed that way. Like Topsy. She was wearing a sleeveless dress printed over with roses. Her arms were tanned. She had dashed on a little pink lipstick, but no other makeup.
Not love at first sight, Im pretty sure of it, but I remember that first sight with surprising clarity. If I told you I remember with similar clarity the first time I saw the former Christy Epping, Id be lying. Of course, it was at a dance club and we were both toasted, so maybe I get a pass on that.
Sadie was good-looking in an artless what-you-see-is-what-you-get American-girl way. She was something else, as well. On the day of the party I thought that something else was plain old big-person clumsiness. Later I found out she wasnt clumsy at all. Was, in fact, the farthest thing from it.
Mimi looked goodor at least no worse than she had on the day shed come to my house and convinced me to teach full-timebut she was wearing makeup, which was unusual. It didnt quite conceal the hollows under her eyes, probably caused by a combination of sleeplessness and pain, or the new lines at the corners of her mouth. But she was smiling, and why not? She had married her fella, she had thrown a party that was obviously a roaring success, and she had brought a pretty girl in a pretty summer dress to meet the schools only eligible English teacher.
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Hey, Mimi, I said, starting up the mild slope toward her, weaving my way around the card tables (borrowed from the Amvets Hall) where people would later sit to eat barbecue and watch the sunset. Congratulations. I guess now Ill have to get used to calling you Miz Simmons.
She smiled her dry smile. Please stick to Mimi, its what Im used to. I have a new faculty member I want you to meet. This is
Someone had neglected to push one of the folding chairs all the way back in, and the big blonde girl, already holding her hand out to me and composing her how-nice-to-meet-you smile, tripped over it and went spilling forward. The chair came with her, tipping up, and I saw the potential for a nasty accident if one of the legs speared her in the stomach.
I dropped my cup of beer in the grass, took a giant step forward, and grabbed her as she fell. My left arm went around her waist. My right hand landed higher, grabbing something warm and round and slightly yielding. Between my hand and her breast, the cotton of her dress slipped over the smooth nylon or silk of whatever she was wearing beneath. It was an intimate introduction, but we had the banging angles of the chair for a chaperone, and although I staggered a little against the momentum of her hundred and fifty or so pounds, I kept my feet and she kept hers.
I took my hand away from the part of her that is rarely grasped when strangers are introduced and said: Hello, Im Jake. I came within a hair of giving my twenty-first-century name, but caught it at the very last moment. Im George. How nice to make your acquaintance.
She was blushing to the roots of her hair. I probably was, too. But she had the good grace to laugh.
Nice to make yours. I think you just saved me from a very nasty accident.
Probably I had. Because that was it, you see? Sadie wasnt clumsy, she was accident-prone. It was amusing until you realized what it really was: a kind of haunting. She was the girl, she told me later, who got the hem of her dress caught in a car door when she and her date arrived at the senior prom, and managed to tear her skirt right off as they headed for the gym. She was the woman around whom water fountains malfunctioned, giving her a faceful; the woman who was apt to set an entire book of matches on fire when she lit a cigarette, burning her fingers or singeing her hair; the woman whose bra strap broke during Parents Night or who discovered huge runs in her stockings before school assemblies at which she was scheduled to speak.
She was careful to mind her head going through doors (as all sensible tall folks learn to be), but people had a tendency to open them incautiously in her face, just as she was approaching them. She had been stuck in elevators on three occasions, once for two hours, and the year before, in a Savannah department store, the recently installed escalator had gobbled one of her shoes. Of course I knew none of this then; all I knew on that July afternoon was that a good-looking woman with blonde hair and blue eyes had fallen into my arms.
I see you and Miss Dunhill are already getting along famously, Mimi said. Ill leave you to get to know one another.
So, I thought, the change from Mrs. Clayton to Miss Dunhill had already been effected, legal formalities or not. Meanwhile, the chair was stuck into the sod by one leg. When Sadie tried to tug it free, it wouldnt come at first. When it did, the back of the chair ran nimbly up her thigh, hiking her skirt and revealing one stocking-top all the way to the garter. Which was as pink as the roses on her dress. She gave a little cry of exasperation. Her blush darkened to an alarming shade of firebrick.
I took the chair and set it firmly aside. Miss Dunhill Sadie if I ever saw a woman who could use a cold beer, that woman is you. Come with me.
Thank you, she said. Im so sorry. My mother told me never to throw myself at men, but Ive never learned.
As I led her toward the line of kegs, pointing out various faculty members along the way (and taking her arm to steer her around a volleyball player who looked like he was going to collide with her as he backpedaled to return a high lob), I felt sure of one thing: we could be colleagues and we could be friends, maybe good friends, but wed never be any more than that, no matter what Mimi might hope for. In a comedy starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day, our introduction would have undoubtedly qualified as meet cute, but in real life, in front of an audience that was still grinning, it was just awkward and embarrassing. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, it was very nice to be walking with such a tall girl and still be taller. And sure, I had enjoyed the yielding firmness of that breast, cupped inside its thin double layer of proper cotton and sexy nylon. But unless youre fifteen, an accidental grope at a lawn party does not qualify as love at first sight.
I got the newly minted (or reminted) Miss Dunhill a beer, and we stood conversing near the makeshift bar for the requisite amount of time. We laughed when the dove Vince Knowles had rented for the occasion poked its head out of his top hat and pecked his finger. I pointed out more Denholm educators (many already leaving Sobriety City on the Alcohol Express). She said she would never get to know them all and I assured her she would. I asked her to call on me if she needed help with anything. The requisite number of minutes, the expected conversational gambits. Then she thanked me again for saving her from a nasty fall, and went to see if she could help gather the kids into the piñata-bashing mob they would soon become. I watched her go, not in love but a little in lust; Ill admit I mused briefly on the stocking-top and the pink garter.
My thoughts returned to her that night as I got ready for bed. She filled a large amount of space in a very nice way, and my eye hadnt been the only one following the pleasant sway of her progress in the print dress, but really, that was it. What more could there be? Id read a book called A Reliable Wife not too long before leaving on the worlds strangest trip, and as I climbed into bed, a line from the novel crossed my mind: He had lost the habit of romance.
Thats me, I thought as I turned out the light. Totally out of the habit. And then, as the crickets sang me to sleep: But it wasnt just the breast that was nice. It was the weight of her. The weight of her in my arms.
As it turned out, I hadnt lost the habit of romance at all.
7
August in Jodie was an oven, with temperatures at least in the nineties every day and often breaking a hundred. The air-conditioning in my rented house on Mesa Lane was good, but not good enough to withstand that sort of sustained assault. Sometimesif there was a cooling showerthe nights were a little better, but not by much.
I was at my desk on the morning of August 27, working away at The Murder Place in a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else, when the doorbell rang. I frowned. It was Sunday, Id heard the sound of competing church bells not too long previous, and most of the people I knew attended one of the towns four or five places of worship.
I pulled on a tee-shirt, and went to the door. Coach Borman was standing there with Ellen Dockerty, the former head of the Home Ec Department and DCHSs acting principal for the coming year; to no ones surprise, Deke had tendered his resignation on the same day Mimi tendered hers. Coach was stuffed into a dark blue suit and a loud tie that looked like it was strangling his plug of a neck. Ellen was wearing a prim gray outfit relieved by a spray of lace at her throat. They looked solemn. My first thought, as persuasive as it was wild: They know. Somehow they know who I am and where I came from. Theyre here to tell me.
Coach Bormans lips were trembling, and although Ellen didnt sob, tears filled her eyes. Then I knew.
Is it Mimi?
Coach nodded. Deke called me. I got EllieI usually take her to churchand were letting people know. The ones she liked the best first.
Im sorry to hear, I said. Hows Deke?
He seems to be bearing up, Ellen said, then glanced at Coach with some asperity. According to him, at least.
Yeah, hes okay, Coach said. Broken up, accourse.
Sure he is, I said.
Hes going to have her cremated. Ellens lips thinned in disapproval. Said it was what she wanted.
I thought about it. We should have some sort of special assembly once schools back in. Can we do that? People can speak. Maybe we could put together a slide show? People must have lots of pictures of her.
Thats a wonderful idea, Ellen said. Could you organize it, George?
Id be happy to try.
Get Miss Dunhill to help you. And before the suspicion of more matchmaking could even begin to cross my mind, she added: I think it will help the boys and girls who loved Meems to know her hand-picked replacement helped plan the memorial assembly. It will help Sadie, too.
Of course it would. As a newcomer, she could use a little banked goodwill to start the year with.
Okay, Ill talk to her. Thank you both. Are you going to be okay?
Sure, Coach said stoutly, but his lips were still trembling. I liked him for that. They went slowly down to his car, which was parked at the curb. Coach had his hand on Ellens elbow. I liked him for that, too.
I closed the door, sat down on the bench in the little dab of front hall, and thought about Mimi saying she would be bereft if I didnt take over the junior-senior play. And if I didnt sign on to teach full-time for at least a year. Also if I didnt come to her wedding party. Mimi, who thought Catcher in the Rye belonged in the school library, and who wasnt averse to a nice boink on Saturday night. She was one of those faculty members the kids remember long after graduation, and sometimes come back to visit when they are no longer kids. The kind who sometimes shows up in a troubled students life at a critical moment and makes a critical difference.
