Consolata tilts the fowl and peers into their silver and rose cavities. She tosses in salt and scours it all around, then rubs the outer skin with a cinnamon and butter mixture. Onion is added to the bits of neck meat, hearts and giblets speckling the broth. As soon as the hens are roasted brown enough and tender she sets them aside so they can reclaim their liquids.
Lukewarm and shallow, the tub water rose only to her waist. Gigi liked it deep, hot, heavy with bubbles. The plumbing in the mansion was breaking up: producing colored water, heaving and sometimes failing to rise to the second floor. The well water passed through a wood-fed boiler nobody other than herself was interested in preserving. She was an habitual nuisance, trying to accumulate gallons of piping-hot water from a decrepit system that was worse than ever in winter. Seneca, of course, had helped out, bringing several pails of steamy water from the kitchen stove to the bathroom. For bubbles she poured in grains of Ivory Snow and whipped the water up as best she could, although the result was a disappointing slime. She had asked Seneca to join her in the tub, got the usual refusal, and although she understood why her friend preferred not to be seen naked, Gigi couldn't resist teasing her about the infrequency of her bathing. The bloody toilet tissue she had seen, but the ridges on Seneca's skin had only been felt under the covers. Blunt and obnoxious as she could be, Gigi could not ask her about them. The answer might come too close to the bleeding black boy scene.
She stretched her legs out and lifted her feet to admire them, as she had done many times when she ran them up K. D. 's spine while she lay in the loft and he sat with his naked back to her. She missed him, now and then. His chaotic devotion, full of moods and hurts and yearning and lots and lots of giving in. Well, she had dogged him a bit. Enjoyed his availability and adoration because she had so little experience of either. Mikey. Nobody could call that love. But K. D.'s version didn't stay fun for long. She had teased, insulted or refused him once too often, and he chased her around the house, grabbed her, smacked her. Mavis and Seneca had pulled him off, used kitchen equipment on him and got him out of there-all three of them answering his curses with better ones of their own.
Ah, well. This is a new year, she thought. Nineteen seventy-five. New plans, since the old ones had turned out to be trash. When she finally got the box out of the bathroom tile, she whooped to find it full of certificates. The bank officer was tickled, too, and offered her twenty-five dollars for the pleasure of framing them or putting them in a display case for the amusement of his customers. Not every day you could see documentation of one of the biggest scams in the West. She held out for fifty dollars and stomped out of the bank ordering Mavis to just drive, please.
She would make Seneca leave with her. For good this time. Get back in the fray. Somehow. Somewhere. Her mother was unlocatable; her father on death row. Only a grandfather left, in a spiffy trailer in Alcorn, Mississippi. She had not thought about it too carefully, but now she wondered exactly why she had left. The fray, that is. It wasn't just the bleeding boy or Mikey's trick about the couple making out in the desert or the short guy's advice about clear water and entwined trees. Before Mikey, the point of it all was lost to entertainment and adventure. Provocative demonstrations, pamphlets, bickering, police, squatters, leaders and talking, talking, so much talk. None of it was serious. Gigi lifted soapy hands to reclasp a roller in her hair. Neither a high school nor a college student, no one, not even the other girls, took her seriousness seriously. If she hadn't been able to print, no one would have known she was there. Except Mikey. "Bastards," she said aloud. And then, not knowing which of the bastards infuriated her most, she slapped the awful bathwater, hissing "Shit!" with each stroke. It calmed her after a while, enough for her to lean back in the tub, cover her face and whisper into her dripping wet palms, "No, you stupid, stupid bitch. Because you weren't tough enough. Smart enough. Like with every other goddamn thing you got no staying power. You thought it was going to be fun and that it would work. In a season or two. You thought we were hot lava and when they broke us down into sand, you ran."
Gigi was not the crying type; even now, when she realized she had not approved of herself in a long, long time, her eyes were desertskull dry.
Consolata is peeling and quartering small brown potatoes. She simmers them in water seasoned with pan juices, bay leaf and sage before arranging them in a skillet where they turn darkly gold. She sprinkles paprika and seeds of blackest pepper over them. "Oh, yes," she says. "Oh, yes."
Best goddamn thing on wheels was how he put it, and Mavis hoped his affection for the ten-year-old Cadillac meant he'd give her a break.
She would never know if he did, but just before his shop closed for the day, the mechanic finished and took fifty labor, thirty-two parts, oil and gas thirteen, so almost all of the cornfield rent money was gone. Not another payment due from Mr. Person for three months. Still, there was enough for regular shopping, plus the paint Connie wanted (for the red chair, she guessed; but white too, so maybe the chicken coop), as well as the ice cream sticks. The twins were fond of them and ate them right away. But the Christmas toys had been untouched, so Mavis had spent the five-hour wait for the tuneup and repairs exchanging the Fisher-Price truck for a Tonka and the Tiny Tina doll for one that spoke. Soon Pearl would be old enough for a Barbie. It was amazing how they changed and grew. They could not hold their heads up when they departed, but when she first heard them in the mansion, they were already toddlers, two years old. Based on their laughter, she could tell precisely. And based on how well integrated they were with the other children who chased about the rooms, she knew how they grew. Now they were school age, six and a half, and Mavis had to think of age-appropriate birthday and Christmas presents.