"Why'd she come here on her wedding night?" asked Pallas.
"Long story." Mavis dabbed alcohol on her arm, comparing the bloody scratches to the ones Gigi had put there earlier. "Came here years back. Connie delivered her baby for her. She didn't want it, though."
"So where is it?"
"With Merle and Pearl, I think."
"Who?"
Gigi cut her eyes at Mavis. "It died."
"Doesn't she know that?" asked Seneca. "She said you all killed it."
"I told you she's the whole house of nuts."
"She left right after," Mavis said. "I don't know what she knows.
She wouldn't even look at it."
They paused then, seeing it: the turned-away face, hands covering ears so as not to hear that fresh but mournful cry. There would be no nipple, then. Nothing to put in the little mouth. No mother shoulder to snuggle against. None of them wanted to remember or know what had taken place afterward.
"Maybe it wasn't his. K. D.'s," said Gigi. "Maybe she was cutting out on him."
"So? So what if it wasn't his? It was hers." Seneca sounded hurt. "I don't understand." Pallas moved toward the stove, where the leftover bread pudding sat.
"I do. In a way." Mavis sighed. "I'll make us some coffee."
"Not for me. I'm going back to bed." Gigi yawned.
"She was really mad. You think she'll get back all right?"
"Saint Seneca. Please."
"She was screaming," Seneca said, staring at Gigi.
"So were we." Mavis measured coffee into the percolator basket.
"Yeah, but we didn't call her names."
Gigi sucked her teeth. "How do you know what to call a psycho who's got nothing better to do on her wedding night but hunt down a dead baby?"
"Call her sorry?"
"Sorry, my ass," Gigi answered. "She just wants to hang on to that little dick she married."
"Didn't you say you were going to bed?"
"I am. Come on, Seneca."
Seneca ignored her roommate. "Should we tell Connie?"
"What for?" snapped Mavis. "Look. I don't want that girl anywhere near Connie."
"I think she bit me." Pallas appeared surprised. "Look. Is that teeth marks?"
"What do you want, a rabies shot?" Gigi yawned. "Come on, Sen.
Hey, Pallas. Lighten up."
Pallas stared. "I don't want to sleep down here by myself."
"Who said you had to? That was your idea."
"Ther're no more beds upstairs."
"Oh, Christ." Gigi started toward the hall, Seneca following.
"What a baby."
"I told you. The others are stored in the cellar. I'll put one up tomorrow. You can sleep with me tonight," said Mavis. "Don't worry. She won't be back." She locked the back door then stood watching the coffee percolate. "By the way, what's your name? Last name, I mean."
"Truelove."
"No kidding. And your mother named you Pallas?"
"No. My father."
"What's her name? Your mother."
"Dee Dee. Short for Divine."
"Oooo. I love it. Gigi! Gigi! You hear that? Her name's Divine.
Divine Truelove."
Gigi ran back to stick her head in the doorway. Seneca too.
"It is not! That's my mother's name."
"She a stripper?" Gigi was grinning.
"An artist."
"They all are, honey."
"Don't tease her," murmured Seneca. "She's had a long day."
"Okay, okay, okay. Good night… Divine." Gigi vanished back through the door.
"Don't pay her any attention," Seneca said, then, whispering quickly as she left, "She has a small mind."
Mavis, still smiling, poured coffee and cut bread pudding. She served Pallas and sat down next to her, blowing into the coffee steam. Pallas picked at a third helping of dessert.
"Show me the tooth marks," said Mavis.
Pallas turned her head and pulled at the neck of her T-shirt, exposing her shoulder.
"Oooo," Mavis groaned.
"Is every day like this here?" Pallas asked her.
"Oh, no." Mavis stroked the wounded skin. "This is the most peaceful place on earth."
"You'll take me to call my father tomorrow?"
"Yep. First thing." Mavis stopped her stroking. "I love your hair." They finished the nighttime snack in silence. Mavis picked up the lamp, and they abandoned the kitchen to darkness. When they were in front of Mavis' bedroom door she didn't open it. She froze. "Hear that? They're happy," she said, covering her laughing lips. "I knew it. They love that baby. Absolutely love it." She turned to Pallas. "They like you too. They think you're divine."
PATRICIA
Bells and pine trees, cut from green and red construction paper, were piled neatly on the dining room table. All done. Just the glitter was left for the trim. Last year she had made a mistake letting the smaller ones do it. After cleaning their fingers and elbows of glue, after picking specks of silver from their hair and cheeks, she had to do most of the decorations over anyway. This time she would hand out the bells and trees while monitoring each dot of glue herself. In staging the school's Christmas play the whole town helped or meddled: older men repaired the platform, assembled the crib; young ones fashioned new innkeepers and freshened the masks with paint. Women made doll babies, and children drew colored pictures of Christmas dinner food, mostly desserts-cakes, pies, candy canes, fruit-because roast turkeys were too much of a challenge for small fingers. When the little ones had silvered the bells and pine trees, Patricia herself would thread loops at their tops. The Eastern star was Harper's department. He checked it for repair each year making sure its points were sharp and that it would glow properly in the dark cloth sky. And she supposed old Nathan DuPres would deliver the opening remarks once again. A sweet man, but couldn't stay the point to save him. The church programs were more formal-sermons, choirs, recitations by the children and prizes for the ones who managed to get through them without stuttering, crying or freezing up-but the school program, featuring the Nativity and involving the whole town, was older, having started before the churches were even built.
Unlike recent years, the December days of 1974 were warm and windy. The sky was behaving like a showgirclass="underline" exchanging its pale, melancholy mornings for sporty ribbons of color in the evening. A mineral scent was in the air, sweeping down from some Genesis time when volcanoes stirred and lava cooled quickly under relentless wind. Wind that scoured cold stone, then sculpted it and, finally, crumbled it to the bits rock hounds loved. The same wind that once lifted streams of Cheyenne /Arapaho hair also parted clumps of it from the shoulders of bison, telling each when the other was near. She had noticed the mineral smell all day and now, finished with grading papers and making decorations, she checked the showgirl sky for a repeat performance. But it was over. Just some lilac shapes running after a Day-Glo sun.
Her father had gone to bed early, exhausted from the monologue he had delivered at the supper table about the gas station he was planning. Eagle Oil was encouraging him-no use to talk to the big oil companies. Deek and Steward were interested in approving the loan, provided he could persuade somebody to sell him the property. So the question was where. Across from Anna's store? Good spot, but Holy Redeemer might not think so. North, then? Next to Sargeant's Feed and Seed? There would be plenty of customers-nobody would have to travel ninety miles for gasoline or keep tanks of it where they lived. The roads? Something might be done to the two dirt ones that extended south and north of Ruby's paved road to meet the county route. If he secured the franchise, the county might tarmac them both. It would be a problem, though, trying to get local people to agree to petition for it-the old ones would put up a fight. They liked being off the county road, accessible only to the lost and the knowledgeable. "But think on it, Patsy, just think on it. I could fix cars, engines; sell tires, batteries, fan belts. Soda pop too. Something Anna don't stock. No point in getting her riled up."