Part 18 (1/2)
This is too botherso sound behind her eyes, and understands that she is flattered by this confidence and also resentful For one thing, it wounds her to be put, thoughtlessly, into the same box with Reverend Rick's ht not like As a matter of fact, she does not really like Reverend Rick, has never liked hireedy about his zeal, and then there are his slumped shoulders and his shi+rt collars which look oddly chewed On the other hand, this young man has driven all the way across town, all the way out to Canary Palms-and on a murderously hot day-in order to consult with her, to seek her wisdom This has not happened often in Mrs
Flett's life Never, in fact It alain
”Have you tried,” she says at last, ”not being gay”
”What?” He shakes a dangling lock of hair out of his eyes
”You know Finding yourself a girlfriend and seeing if-well, you ht surprise yourself, you irlfriend-what I e your attitude”
”Being gay, Mrs Flett, is not a question of attitude”
She has offended hi directly at him, she can tell that his whole body has stiffened This she cannot bear To be the cause of injury Her greatest weakness-she's always known this-is her fear of giving injury, any iven And so, despite her irritation, despite what she's read in the papers about Aids, she stretches out her hand to him, and feels it taken
”Don't tell your o on living a lie”
”Why not?” Then she pauses ”Most people do”
”Not if we take our Christian faith seriously-”
”Your mother already knows” She says this crossly
Suddenly it seems to Mrs Flett that Reverend Rick's mother is here in the room with them, and that she really is, after all, a rather nice woo Full of smiles
”Let me put it this way Your mother half-knows Soon she will fully know She'll work it out People do It's not so the two of you will ever have to discus if you don't want to Not ever” (She can't help feeling just a little proud of this speech) ”But to live with this barrier between us!” he says in a silly, whispery voice He is weeping now Weeping and sniffling
”I', all of a sudden, terribly tired These pills they give me”
”It was different in your day People were afraid to be open
They lived their whole lives as if they were fairytales”
”Terribly, terribly sleepy” Her throat tingles, it really does ”If you'll forgive me”
”May God bless you, Mrs Flett”
How does one reply to God's blessing? ”Goodbye,” Mrs Flett says firainst her pillows, and then adding a randmotherly, womanly, feminine tossed-coin of a benediction, ”Drive carefully now”
In the ets thea leak, her brainenvelopes, it's getting all over the furniture What she needs, she tells her daughter, is open-heart surgery on her head
”Ha,” Alice says obligingly
Everything makes her cross, the frowsiness of dead flowers in a vase, the s, but well, not really, you see Inside she's still a bowl of vibrating Jello, wise old Mrs Green Thumb, remember her? Soency, etc
It surprises Grandma Flett that there is so much humor hidden in the earth's crevasses; it's everywhere, like a thousand species of moss Almost every day she sees an ites a s will happen on the floor, the nurses kidding back and forth, soht that coe?
And vanity too Vanity refuses to die, pushi+ng the blandness of everyday life into little pleats, pockets, knobs of electric candy
She looks into her bedside ly hidden on the reverse side of the bed tray, and says, ”There she is, my life's companion Once I sat in her heart Now I crouch in a corner of her eye” Nevertheless she applies a little lipstick in theof powder across her nose (she's had to give up her favorite Woodbury) Just how is it she finds the energy to lift her powder puff, knohat she knows?
And she inspects her nails It was Alice who arranged for the manicurist to drop in last week Naturally Mrs Flett resisted at first-she has never in her life had a professional ance!-but Alice insisted; a little treat, she called it
And so Mrs Flett's hands were lowered into various soapy solutions, then taken into this young woently dried with a towel Her cuticles were trimmed and the nails shaped into perfect ovals ”Moons or plain?” she was asked ”What do you suggest?” said Mrs Flett ”Well, now,” the an, and it was clear that this decision would require soht, soives a beautiful clean look, nice for su a series of garden parties or dropping in at one of Sarasota's finest dining establishments
She keeps her ten buffed beauties carefully under the top sheet, but withdraws the the in the ht, but the fact is, she is alhtly at her sides, and their lightness travels up to her wrists and flows into her arant; they do! They look brand new When you think of the slippage her body has undergone, the spoilage, you can perhaps understand her latest foolishness But this concentration on fingernails is close to being obsessive, a distortion of normal powder-and-lipstick vanity It sha her life ive her so much pleasure If she's not careful she'll turn into one of those pathetic old fruitcakes who are forever counting their blessings
”Have you ever thought of having a pedicure?” Alice asks her
Pictures fly into her head, brighter by far than those she sees on the big TV screen in the patients' lounge A sparkling subversion
Murs in her ears She can tune in any ti in her Aunt Clarentine's garden, stooping over the snapdragons, pinching theers so that their ues Do other people know about this? She picks a spear of chive and sucks it ”Daisy,” she hears She's being called in to supper Aunt Clarentine's proht of pancakes, the hot bite of chives, the hidden throats of flowers, the sun, the sound of her own name-she is suddenly dizzy with the press of sensation, afraid she will die of it
Snow fell on the neighborhood houses and at once they, and their small fenced yards, became whitened with soft fur, hat used to be called in those days spring sherbet She scooped a handful froainst her forehead until she could bear it no longer A test of soht was cold and clear
She found so iridescence on the road A rainbow pressed into the paving No one else kneas there, thisshe had discovered But she irls in the neighborhood who said, calm as can be, ”Why it's only oil, just a little oil spilled on the roadway, nothing to rass, split it with her fingernail, held it between her thumbs and blew Someone showed her how to do this, she can't re sound, like a loon screeching You got better and better at it You learned, and you never forgot You were like other people, you could do the sas other people did
The brown leaves had been raked into a pile ready to burn, and she longed to lie down on top of the leaves, staring upward She let herself fall backward, her arly, and at once the complications of branches, fences, sheds and houses, so dense and tangled together, burst with a cartoon pop into the spare singularity of sky, the primary abruptness of blue That's all there was
Herself suspended in a glass sphere You could go back and back to that true and steadfast picture, hold it in your head for the rest of your life
What is your name?
Daisy
Daisy what?
Daisy Goodwill
Do you knohat the word ”Daisy” ht I used to know that I'd forgotten
A daisy really is a bit like an eye when you think about it, round and fringed with lashes, staring upward
Opening, closing