Hubert looks at me, but somehow, miraculously, I don't react (much as a prisoner brought into an enemy camp knows not to react), and Hubert reaches out and takes my hand and says, "That's so funny. Cecelia and I were just talking about whether or not Lil'Bit might be here. Cecelia said she would.”
Aunt Ursula looks at me as if seeing me for the first time, then says, "Well, Cecelia may be psychic. She may have hidden talents none of us could ever imagine.”
This remark is soooo unbelievably cutting, but in a way that Hubert would never notice, that I decide to say absolutely nothing. I give Aunt Ursula a supercilious yet bored smile, and she says, "I hope you don't mind about Lil'Bit. You two are friends?”
“I've never met her," I say casually. "In fact, Hubert never even mentions her.”
"You'll love her," Aunt Ursula says. And just at that moment, Sir Ernie Munchnot walks up in his swimming trunks, showing off his chest which, I have to admit, does look pretty good for a guy who must be sixty, and he hugs Hubert and then me. I giggle loudly when if s my turn and look over at Aunt Ursula, who is definitely watching this exchange and is not particularly pleased, and I say, "Oh Uncle Ernie. It's soooo great to see you. Gosh, you're in awfully good shape." And he says, "How's my favorite niece-in-law? I always told Hubert if he didn't marry you, I would." He puts his arm around me and we begin walking toward the patio, where lunch will be served by three small Italian women in white uniforms. "Hey," Uncle Ernie says, "I still swim five miles a day. Exercise. That’s the key to life. I keep telling my kids, but they don't listen." Princess Ursula makes a face and shakes her head. And then, she just can't help rubbing it in. "Lil’Bit s coming for lunch.”
"Lil'Bit? Well ... good," he says. "Now there's a gal who needs to get some sense in her head. I keep telling her to stop running around and get her life together, but I think she's been all mixed up ever since Hubert here broke up with her." Princess Ursula gives him a disapproving look and says, "Lil'Bit is absolutely fine. She's just not like the rest of us." She directs this at me: "I always say she's one of God's heavenly creatures.”
At that moment, a car pulls into the driveway, and we all look over to where the "heavenly creature”
is extracting herself, her two illegitimate children, a nanny, a stroller, and various nappies from the car. Lil'Bit is wearing—get this—an Indian sari. She picks up one of the children and takes the other by the hand. Amid this picture of motherly bliss, she looks up and waves girlishly.
"Just look at her," Aunt Ursula exclaims. "I always say Lil'Bit is the most elegant woman I know.”
“Come and see Kirby," Lil'Bit says to everyone in general, but mostly, I think, to Hubert. Her voice is soft, sweet, almost a whisper. She's all shy, with her long blond hair in front of her face. Jesus. I used to look like that. I used to do that with him. That’s what he likes. That’s what works on him. It makes me sick. In fact, I'd actually like to jump on her and rip her eyes out, but I remind myself that I won. I got him and she didn't. I got him because I was smarter than she was. I played a completely different game. I was unavailable. Mysterious. While she played the victim. He got bored. But was that really the reason? Or was it because she had two illegitimate children, and Hubert couldn't, in the end, "handle it"?
"Hi," she says to me, holding out a long, bony hand. "You must be Cecelia.”
For a moment, our eyes meet, and then she hands the "baby"—a two-year-old girl—to Princess Ursula, who coos disgustingly all over it, while pushing Kirby, a sullen-faced six-year-old boy, toward Hubert.
"Hey Kirby," Hubert says, lifting the boy and shaking him slightly. "Remember me?”
"No," Kirby says (sensibly, I think), but Hubert won't have it; he laughs loudly and says, "Don't you remember playing baseball? Batter up!" He swings the boy around, which makes him start screaming, and then, as is always the case in these situations, the children are whisked away, probably to be fed some sort of gruel in the kitchen.
"Still no children of your own?" Lil'Bit says, looking up at Hubert from underneath that sheaf of hair, as if this is some private joke. And then, for absolutely no discernible reason, Lil'Bit Parsons runs to the middle of the small, rocky yard and begins spinning around until she falls to the ground.
I want to scream, "This woman is a fucking nutcase," but as I am the only one who apparently thinks so (because the rest of them are laughing delightedly, as if they'd just witnessed a performance by Marcel Marceau), I hold my tongue, pursing my lips in disapproval.
And after that, there is nothing to be done but to endure this long, boring lunch in which Lil'Bit dominates the conversation by talking about how she's studying with gurus (indeed, she has been told that she will become a guru herself, having been one in a past life), the importance of animal rights, the evils of caffeine, and how she's decided to start her own Internet company and (gasp) move to New York.
Throughout this, she basically ignores me, and even though ifs clear this woman is an absolute idiot, I'm feeling smaller and smaller, wondering why I ever let them cut my hair and thinking maybe I need to buy new, flashier clothes, and I sit up very straight in my chair and handle my utensils formally, saying little and allowing a slight smile to play across my lips from time to time.
"Oh Cecelia ... that's it, right? Cecelia," Lil'Bit says toward the end of the meal, "Do you work or ... or anything?”
"Cecelia is going to start doing some charity work," Hubert says firmly, although, as far as I can remember, I have never expressed an interest in charity work, nor do I plan to do so.
"Oh really," Lil'Bit purrs. "What kind of charity?”
“Encephalitic babies," I say. "You know, those kids with big heads?”
"Really," Princess Ursula says, shaking her head. "You shouldn't joke about ...”
"Oh, I have something for you," Lil'Bit says to Hubert, reaching into her bag and pulling out a deck of cards. "They're American Indian tarot cards." She giggles. "From when I stayed in the tepee on the reservation in Montana. Doing the Indian rights thing.”
"Thank you," Hubert says.
"Really," I say. "I didn't know you were interested in the paranormal.”
"Dianna Moon is with us, and she says her husband's body parts were taken away by aliens," Hubert says somewhat uneasily.
Lil'Bit shuffles the cards. "That’s true, you know. I don't think they ever found his spleen.”
"Am I actually having this conversation?" I say, to no one in particular.
"Dianna Moon is your best friend," Hubert says. "After you, darling," I say, touching his arm and smiling, fakely, across the table at Lil'Bit.
"Let me read your cards," Lil'Bit says to Hubert, in what she evidently thinks is a low, sexy voice. "I want to see your future.”
Will she never go away? Lil'Bit looks at Hubert's cards. She takes his hands in hers. "Oh my darling," she says breathily. "You must be ... careful. Don't do anything ... dangerous.”
This is quite simply too much for me. "Don't be ridiculous/' I snap. Everyone looks at me. "Let me give it a try. Let me read your cards, Lil'Bit.”
“Oh, but—you have to be ... trained, " she says. "How do you know I'm not?" I say.
I wave Hubert out of his seat and sit down across from her.
"But I already know my cards," she says. "I do them every day.”
"Do you?" I ask. "Are you sure?”
“You lay them out," she says.
"You know that wouldn't be right, Lil'Bit. You know you have to ... touch the cards. “
"Well," Lil'Bit says, looking up at Hubert. "This should be .. .fun. “
She begins laying out the cards. And, just as I had a feeling they might be, they're all upside down. "How ... interesting," I say.