Joy Williams - State of Grace

“It’s really mostly crepe,” Debbie is saying. Of course she does not care for weird stringy me. But she is a sister and the sisters are bound in the solemn ceremony of Omega Omega Omega, linked one to one by their knowledge of the secrets of Catherine who was not only a virgin and perfect in every way but also had her paps burnt away and her head smote off.

Debbie is being gracious. She is exercising her southern self — that is, she does not see rag-tag unpleasant me. She sees no object specifically. She works utterly on a set of principles.

The stone rolls back across my eyes. I open them and then I close them firmly. I would like a glass full of gin and cold orange juice and a few drops of Angostura bitters and I would like to be under the sun on the beach, getting hot and clean. The thought of gin makes me sick but I persist in its conjuring. My stomach turns for I am really afraid. My stomach is no longer my own. It is the baby that my thought of gin repels. I think of Sweet Tit Sue. I am deliberate in restoring her. She didn’t touch me. She smelled of shade and wild tarragon growing. She wouldn’t touch me. She stood with her arms crossed over her enormous chest. There were plants everywhere, growing in red dirt out of potato chip cans. You’re Grady’s girl, she said. I’m not about to do anything to mess him up. If you’re messing him up it’s best he be shut of you, she said. She wouldn’t put her hand on me. Where did he touch you , Mother had said. She was weeping, she had lost her mind. Was it here? Here? Something flew from her mouth and dropped wetly on my knee. Mother was crying. God . She shook me. A bubble of sickness rose in my throat. I knows that good boy Grady, Sweet Sue said. It’s him I’ll do the favors to. You come back here with Grady if you want. The baby was twisting and clawing inside of me. His fear took up the oxygen. Her cabin has one room. Someone drops an egg — a brown one with a tiny fluff of feather stuck to it. It falls and falls. It’s not for me, I said. I don’t care what happens to me. I sat down on a corner of her beautiful brass bed. Sue made a small rude sound. The sheets smelled of onions. She made me go away. Tell me , Mother had said. Tell me what he did .

“I must be off,” Debbie is saying. “See you round like a donut.”

The swollen banyan bloats out around me. I sniff my absent repulsive and wonderful gin. One can feel only so sick after all and I am not really sick. If anyone ever leaves this world alive it will be me, or someone like me, a woman and a lover, bearing a bad beginning in my womb. Kate fecit. When will the bottom be? What joy, the bottom of the pit. BUT HE BEING FULL OF COMPASSION DESTROYED THEM NOT … FOR HE REMEMBERED THAT THEY WERE BUT … words, words. I must only be silent as Daddy said. I must not tell. And what is the pain of this moment? I am a young thing gripping a picnic basket, waiting for my man. All is sequence and little is substance …

“Hullo, Kate.” The voice is too familiar. I would know it anywhere, as though I had never had to relate it to a form. “Come back, have you? Had an adventure?” Cords stands over me as though it was she who laid me low. Doreen stands behind her, a pretty little doll with glassy eyes. Cords has bitten her nails down to stubs and wears gloves, trying to break the habit. They are black vinyl gloves and their presence, so close to me seems apocalyptic. A BAD ANGEL. AN ANGEL OF DEATH.

“Well, Cords,” I say, “you’re cutting an impressive shape this morning.”

Doreen looks empty-headedly down. Her hair swings around her hips. She passes her hand across her neck in a precise gesture of languor. She smiles at me. Then she smiles more anxiously at Cords.

Cords says, “You definitely look peaked. Think a picnic lunch will really perk you up? Picnics aren’t for you, Kate. They’re for those with lighter hearts.”

“I am waiting for someone,” I say.

“So are we all,” Cords sighs, “but you do it so drably. You’ve dropped out of our sights for months and now that you’re back, you’re the same.”

“More of the same,” I correct her wittily. Oh, Grady, I cannot right myself .

“Yes indeed, you’ve got all those things you keep thinking about. All in the past. And you keep chewing on them. You’re choking on them.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I had a bird once. He was a toucan and extraordinary looking but everything about him was forgettable.”

“We are speaking of your problem,” Cords says, putting her little finger in the corner of her mouth. She immediately jerks it away. There is a look that is almost pain on her face. “These goddamn hands of mine. I’ve abused them too long and now they’re just blood waiting to spill.”

“Icchhh,” Doreen says.

“Tender as hell,” Cords complains. “Like some of those poor mammals born without skin.”

“Icchhh,” Doreen cries.

Vivid Cords. Today she wears a black suit, a mauve linen shirt with huge soft cuffs. She is striking. The heat has made tight ringlets of her hair. She is the leader of our sisterhood. As in most things, the real leader is not the acknowledged head. Our head is a girl with a slight mustache whose mother sends a torte from Cleveland monthly. When motorists scream dimyerlights at her while she is driving she thinks that they are from Ohio too and acknowledges them with a cheery thump on her horn. She is seldom heeded, even on her own terms, and has a continual expression of candid disappointment. No, it is Cords who’s in the saddle, as it were. It is she who plays big brother to all the little sisters. They run around her thither and there, cooing in their Italian underwear. One size fits all. They do not discuss her with each other. They want her to themselves. She is fashionable. She is smart. The sources and supply of her insults and praise are inexhaustible. The girls clamor for her attention and authority. When she leaves them they feel lovelier and luckier than they had before. They feel relieved and knowledgeable without being wise, like bunnies escaping from a snare.

She exhibits her profile to me. It is as cold and inarguable as a knife. She has never been touched by a man and makes no attempt to conceal her success. Each year she chooses a girl for herself. The choice is never questioned by the chosen. They are without exception beautiful girls. They are usually rich. It was apparent that the moment Doreen walked on campus, Cords would want her. And she got her. Which was not to say that Doreen didn’t enjoy the boys. Cords urged her to, for Cords was out to make her the Golden Rain Tree Queen, queen of the town, of the state, of the country.

Doreen is looking up into the branches of the banyan, alternately tossing her hair and twisting her fingers around her necklace. It is a mustard seed in heavy-duty plastic, crouched in the dimple of her throat. It really is.

“I have a notion that we are akin in many ways,” Cords says to me.

“Don’t be forward.” I try to rise in one long and confident motion to my feet, but fail.

“Where have you been?” Cords muses softly. “Canceling issue?”

“Ahh,” breathes Doreen.

Cords shakes her head. Her skin is eerily matte flat, lacking blemish or shadow or curve. “No, I don’t think so. You’re the one with one foot in religion. Think all the little babies are stars in heaven waiting to be plucked out to bless earth.”

“That’s not me. I’m partial to the thinking that they’re glowing wee embers in hell.”

“My poppa always used to tell me that I was the brightest whitest star in the Milky Way,” Doreen exclaimed sweetly.

“It hasn’t ever been the same since and that’s a fact,” Cords says, but doesn’t take her eyes off me.