Don't Cry Page 12

  “On you it does.” The woman's hair was an ostentatious bronze; her skin was damaged and overtanned. But her jewelry was tasteful and her makeup perfect.

  An old-school sales type, thought Bea approvingly. You don't expect to find that at an airport. “I'll take them both,” she said.

  Pleased with her purchase, she continued down the corridor toward her gate, past more gleaming eateries and shops. Her thoughts now were suffused not by The Mikado, but by the look Susan had on her face when her sister presented that childish spectacle in the garage. It occurred to her that although Susan had become many things since then, that particular look of blindness and glaring sunlit vision still described her. She was a sort of therapist, and it was part of her therapy to read people's “auras,” and, by moving her hands some inches above their bodies, to massage these auras. She read tarot cards, believed in past lives, and occasionally phrases like “astral plane” versus “physical plane” appeared in her conversation. It was nonsense, but harmless and—

  Should she stop and get something to eat? Here were people at an Internet café, humped over keyboards and dishes of fried food, typing with one hand while they gobbled with the other, writing e-mails and surfing chat rooms while televisions blared from every corner. How interesting it was to be a person who, while considering eating at the airport Internet café, could remember riding a mule on a mud road to get the bus to school. You used to sit in the Greyhound terminal, waiting for the bus, and except for the roar and wheeze of the buses, it was quiet and you had to really look at the people across from you. You had to feel them, and if it was hot, you had to smell them. There might be children chasing each other up and down, or men playing chess on a cardboard table set up on the sidewalk outside, or a woman holding a beautiful baby. But there was nothing to make you think you were anyplace but the Greyhound waiting room. Now people waiting to travel crouched over screens, hopping from one outrageous place to the next, and typing opinionated, angry messages—about the war in Iraq or a murder in Minneapolis or parents who were keeping their daughter alive even though she'd been in a coma for ten years—to strangers they would never see, let alone smell. Above their heads, actors silently sang and danced and fought; scenes of war and murder flashed like lightning, and heads of state moved their lips as chunks of words streamed over them. You could sit there on the physical plane, absently loading piles of fried food into your mouth while your mind disappeared through a rented computer screen and went somewhere positively astral.

  No, Bea thought as she walked on. She just wanted to go to the gate. She wanted to think about riding to the school bus on her grandfather's mule, Maypo. That had happened the winter they had stayed at their grandparents’ farm while their parents looked for a place to live in Chicago, and the farm was way off the main road, on a dirt path that had treacherous ice patches in the winter. Their grandfather put all three of them up on Maypo and led them down the path to where the school bus was. It was fun to sway on the hairy, humpy back, knowing that Maypo's feet were sure. Bea remembered the way the mule's heavy hooves would make blue cracks in the ice; she remembered boughs of pine brushing against her body, thick with snow that fell off in clumps as she passed.

  Megan had no patience for Susan's past lives and tarot cards. She thought it was precious and self-indulgent, and Bea could see why When Megan was fifteen and Susan thirteen, Aunt Flower, their stepgrandmother, who hated cats, told them that Grand-daddy had killed Pitty-Sing's litter by putting them in a bag and swinging them against the side of the house. In fact, more than one litter had been killed, but none so brutally, nor so late in life, and Bea saw no reason for the children to hear about any of it. Susan was already crying when she came to Bea, with Megan trailing sulkily behind, upset about the kittens, too, but provoked by Susan's wild, high-pitched sobs.

  “She said … she said that Pitty-Sing was crying,” said Susan, weeping. “She said Pitty-Sing was crying, and grabbing his pant leg, begging him to stop.”

  “She told us as an example of a time she had sympathy for cats,” explained Megan. “Even she was sad when Granddaddy told her about it. Because of Pitty-Sing grabbing the pant leg.”

  “That is cruel; it's wrong!” cried Susan. “Granddaddy is mean!”

  “Honey” Bea put her arm around Susan's hot back. “It's not the same as it would be now. There was no birth control for cats back then, and you couldn't keep all the kittens. You had to kill them; otherwise, they'd starve.”

  “That's what I told her!” said Megan. “I think it's awful too, but—”

  “But like that? Bashing them against the side of the house?” Susan pulled away from her mother and searched her face with wet, hysterical eyes. What was she looking for? “Something was wrong there. Something was wrong!” She turned away, her voice rising. “I hate Granddaddy, I hate him!”

  “Oh shut up!” said Megan.

  Bea stopped thinking for a moment and looked at the stream of faces pouring past her, young, old, middle-aged. Their expressions were tense and lax at the same time, and they moved mechanically without awareness, focused only on getting somewhere else.

  In fact, Susan had been right. Something was wrong. There were only three kittens in that litter and their mother had told them they could each have one; she had already given each of them a particular kitten. Then they came home from school and she told them that Daddy had decided that having four cats was too much, and that the kittens had been taken away. It was the same summer she had come up the walk, smiling and triumphant as she stripped off her clothes, the dogwood flowering as she came.

  Here was her gate, A6. It seemed that she always departed from gates that were low alphabetically and numerically—an example of something to which Susan might attach mystical significance. She sat down with a proprietary “Oof.” Well, Susan had made her beliefs work for her. She had made a life. She had a “partner,” a woman named Julie, who managed a bookstore. Susan had worked on Bea's “aura” several times, and if the “therapy” didn't help, it was still pleasant to have her daughter's hands working above her, close enough to feel the heat of her palms, working to give her mother healing and happiness. She took out her book-club novel— something literary from another century, the name of which she had a hard time remembering—and a newsmagazine. She looked through her purse, found her glasses, looked up, and—there he was again, the little dark-skinned boy she had seen earlier. He was singing as he fooled around on some plastic chairs, hopping neatly over each armrest, his face glowing with pleasure. Bea smiled to see him.

  She put her glasses on, remembering Susan at his age, when she and Mac found her in their bedroom, leaping up and down on their big bed as if it were a trampoline, ecstatically whipping her hair about and crying, “Eeee! Eeee! Eeeeee!” Bea was about to make her get down, but before she could, Mac kicked off his shoes and climbed up onto the bed with his daughter. “Eeeee!” he yelled, jumping once, landing on his rear, and bouncing from there. Bea said, “Careful, Mac, careful!” but she was smiling. Dinner was about ready to come out of the oven; she could still remember the meaty smell of it, and the big green leaves of the bush outside pressing against the windowpane. “Daddy!” shouted Susan. “Daddy!” His shirt had come out of his pants, and his face was pink and joyous.

  Nothing but contempt—

  Bea put her book down and felt her face flush. It was Megan who had contempt. Contempt for her father's sadness and his failure at medical school and his job at a pharmacy Contempt for his rage, especially for his rage; when he lost his temper and slapped her, her blue eyes were hot with scorn. It wasn't that his violence didn't hurt her—it did. His sarcasm and ignoring hurt her, too. But in adolescence, scorn rose up from her hurt like something winged and flaming. At fourteen, she lectured Bea on sexism as if her mother were a perfect idiot. When Bea drove her to a sleepover, or to buy new shoes, or any other time they were alone together, Megan would say, “It's unfair. He acts like a big baby and then he bosses you! You should stand u
p to him or leave!”

  It was true that Bea in some small way had liked to hear her daughter say these things. It was unfair, his constant complaining, his throwing the fork across the dining table and expecting her just to pick it up, get him a new one, and act as though nothing had happened. Somebody littered the edge of the yard, and he yelled, “I'll show you littering!” and then went out and dumped a bag of potatoes in the neighbor's drive. When Bea came home from the hospital with newborn Megan, she'd come early on Monday evening instead of on Tuesday morning, because she'd been eager and Tomasina had unexpectedly been there to give her a ride. They had no phone at home, so she couldn't call ahead, and she thought she might surprise him—but when she and her newborn child arrived, young Daddy wasn't at home. He was out having drinks and dinner with Jean, a woman he worked with. Bea had waited until after he was dead to tell it: how she was there all alone with her baby and how, when he finally got back after midnight and found her there, he ran into the laundry room, taking his shirt off as he went, stammering nonsense about wanting to help the lady they'd hired to do the laundry. The next day, Bea had looked in the hamper and seen it: his shirt covered with sticky lipstick kisses.

  The air filled with floating announcements directing everyone every which way: Flight 775—ready for boarding—Gate A4. Flight 83— Memphis—delayed until further notice. Cincinnati—flight—

  Her mother came up the walk, stripping down to her slip in the heat, flowering all around. She announced her adultery in public, in glorious secret. They didn't know until they found the love letters after she died. But looking back, it was there in her proud walk, for anyone who had eyes to see. Mac scuttled and hid, when he hadn't even succeeded at cheating!

  “Jean was a smart cookie,” said Bea, “and she never would've kissed him all over the shirt like that if she'd done anything untoward. I think she meant that as a message to me.”

  “That's what you think?” said Megan.

  “Yes. I think he tried and she said no.”

  “And you're telling me you don't have contempt for him?”

  “Stop it, you little idiot! You little—”

  Aware that people were staring, the mother of the dark-skinned boy lowered her voice to a furious mutter as she dragged her child back to his seat by the crook of his elbow. Was she even his mother? She was pale, with thinning blond hair and a small mouth—on the other hand, her body was heavy like his, tall and voluptuous. Bea tried to catch the child's eye, but he was looking down, all the life gone out of his face.

  “Honey,” said Bea. “You don't understand. I felt sorry for him. It's different.”

  Megan stared, and her face grew remote.

  Flight 775—final call. Bea picked up her book and remembered Prue Johannsen, the oldest member of the book club, who had twice, when she meant to say “the cemetery,” said “the airport” instead. The memory gave Bea a sensation that she could not define. Prue was a beautiful ninety-year-old woman with bright eyes and a long, still-elegant neck, sloping and gentle as a giraffe's. She was a widow and she visited her husband's grave often. “I went to the airport this afternoon,” she'd say. “I think I'll have them plant some purple flowers instead of the red.”

  What a strange world, thought Bea. A strange, sad, glowing world. In this world, she had married a boy who courted her with a vision of the two of them traveling together, in the jungle, in the desert, in the mountains of Tibet, bringing healing to the sick and learning from life. In this world, her boy husband became a man who got up in the morning and said, “I think I'll just kill myself,” and who at night threw a fork across the dining room table. It was the same world, but now he was dead and yet she was not a widow At night, her darkness came while she lay alone watching light and shadow on the wall: streetlamp, telephone wire, moths, bits of leafy branch; sometimes a pale rectangle of light suddenly opened its eye, revealing a ghost of movement inside it as someone in the apartment across the street used the toilet or the sink.

  “I feel so old and so worthless.” Beautiful Prue Johannsen had said that one night after a discussion about Mrs. Dalloway. Everyone said, “No!” But they all knew what she meant.

  Bea got to her feet, full of sudden energy. “You can still do good,” she'd said. “Prue, you can still—” She went to a nearby kiosk attended by a long-fingered East Indian bent like a pipe-cleaner man. She bought a bottle of water and a candy bar with caramel and nuts. Instead of going directly back to her seat, she walked around the gate area and approached the little dark boy and his blond mother. The mother looked up, not unpleasantly. Her eyes were deep, long-lashed, and fierce. Well, thought Bea. She is his mother after all.

  “Excuse me,” she said, smiling. “You look familiar to me. Did you ever live in this area?”

  “No. But my sister does.”

  The little boy still looking down, bumped his feet together and hummed.

  “Hmmm—” Bea nervously half-laughed. “Do I look at all familiar to you?”

  “I don't think so.” The woman's eyes were civil, but her voice was vaguely tinged with common sarcasm.

  Coarse, thought Bea, and unobservant. “Well, I guess when you've lived as long as I have, a lot of people look familiar to you.”

  “I know you,” said the child, still looking down. “You were in the magic cave. Downstairs.”

  His mother looked irritated. “The what?”

  “He means the walkway connecting the terminals,” said Bea. “It is like a magic cave, the way they've done it up.”

  At this, the boy looked up; his gaze was alive and tactile, like a baby touching your face with its hands.

  “What a beautiful little boy” said Bea. “And imaginative, too!”

  “A beautiful little pain in the butt, you mean.” But the mother's face was grudgingly pleased. Her name was Lee Anne; her son was Michael. They had been visiting her sister, who lived in a suburb called Canton, and were now waiting for their return flight to Memphis, which had been delayed. Bea and Lee Anne talked about Canton and Livonia, where Bea's family lived; Bea described the crab-apple tree, with its hard dark fruit and soft pale flowers. While they talked, Michael walked around and around them, as if he was dying to run or dance. Could you eat the crab apples? he wanted to know. Could you throw them at people? Could you put them on the floor at night, so crooks would slip and break their butts?

  “Michael, sit down,” said Lee Anne.

  He sat, and immediately began to rock and nod his head.

  “Well,” said Bea, “I—”

  “You talk to yourself,” said Michael, rocking. “In the magic tunnel, you talk to yourself.”

  “Don't be rude!” snapped Lee Anne. She whacked her son on the head with the flat of her hand. “And quit rocking like a retard.”

  “It's all right,” said Bea. “I probably was.”

  “That doesn't matter; I still don't want him being rude.” She stood, looming over Bea with an air of physical dominance that was startling before Bea realized it was habitual. “Listen, could you just watch him for a minute? I want to see if I can talk to these jackasses here.” She gestured at the check-in counter, where a man and a woman in short-sleeved uniforms made automaton motions.

  “Certainly,” said Bea. Lee Anne held her eye for a second as if to make sure of her, then went on toward the check-in counter, her hips expressing a steady, rolling force.

  “She's the one who said you talk to yourself,” said Michael sullenly. He was still now, and very sober.

  “It's okay, honey I do talk to myself sometimes.”

  He raised his head and touched her again with his tactile gaze. Except this look did not have the feel of a baby's touch. It was warm and strong, curiously adult. “Who do you talk to?”

  “Somebody who's gone. Somebody I used to love.”

  Used to. He turned away, but still she felt it coming from him, warmth as strong as the arm of a man laid across her shoulders. Feeling came up in her.

  Attention: Those passe
ngers waiting for flight 83 to Memphis—

  “I talk to my father sometimes,” he said. “Even though he's gone.”

  She started to ask where his father was and then stopped herself. Feeling came up.

  —will be boarding in approximately five minutes.

  “My father is fighting in Iraq,” said Michael. He looked at her, but his eyes did not reach out to touch her. They looked like they had when he rode above her on the escalator—deep and fiery but murky, too.

  “You must be proud,” she said.

  “I am proud!” His eyes were bright, too bright. He was beginning to rock. “My father is our secret weapon! He's fighting on the shoulders of giant apes! He's throwing mountains and planets!”

  Impulsively, Bea knelt and took the boy's shoulders to stop him from rocking. She looked into his too-bright eyes. “And he is proud of you,” she said. “He knows he has a very good boy. He is very proud.”

  “Okay, Mikey it's time to go.” Lee Anne was back, and full of business. “We're outta here.” She hoisted a backpack up on a chair and slipped one arm through a strap. She glanced at Bea. “Nice talking to you.” She shouldered the pack with a graceful swooping squat, then picked up a bulging canvas bag.

  “Yes, you, too. And best to your husband in Iraq.”

  Michael shot Bea a look. Lee Anne's face darkened unreadably “He's been telling you stories,” she said. “I don't have a husband. I don't have anybody in Iraq.”

  And they were gone. Bea saw Lee Anne slap her son on the head once more before they disappeared. Oh, don't, thought Bea. Please don't. But of course she would. The woman was alone and overworked, had probably never married, probably hadn't wanted the child. At least I talked to him, thought Bea; I talked to him and he responded—he responded almost like an adult speaking a child's language.

  And she got on the plane. The stewardess smiled at her, and she slowly made her way down the neutral space of the aisle. She found her seat, stowed her bag, then took out her book and opened it. Children had always responded to her. When Megan and Susan were little and they fought, she rarely had to punish them; she just talked to them in her love voice, and usually they would forget their fight and look at her, waiting to see what she would say next. She could say, “Let's go out into the yard and see what we can find. Maybe we'll see a field mouse or a four-leaf clover!” And quietly they would take her hands and go.