Toni Morrison - Paradise

"Well that is better."

The woman got up. "I suppose. Thank you-for staying."

"Sure. Hangover's a bitch. I'm Gigi. Who died?"

"A love," said the woman. "I had two; she was the first and the last."

"Aw, I'm sorry," Gigi said. "Where's he taking her? The dude in the hearse."

"Far. To a lake named for her. Superior. That's how she wanted it."

"Who else lives here? You didn't cook all this food, did you?"

The woman filled a saucepan with water and shook her head.

"What you gonna do now?"

"Gigi Gigi Gigi Gigi Gigi. That's what frogs sing. What did your mother name you?"

"Her? She gave me her own name."

"Well?"

"Grace."

"Grace. What could be better?"

Nothing. Nothing at all. If ever there came a morning when mercy and simple good fortune took to their heels and fled, grace alone might have to do. But from where would it come and how fast? In that holy hollow between sighting and following through, could grace slip through at all?

It was the I-give woman serving up her breasts like two baked Alaskas on a platter that took all the kick out of looking in the boy's eyes. Gigi watched him battle his stare and lose every time. He said his name was K. D. and tried hard to enjoy her face as much as her cleavage while he talked. It was a struggle she expected, rose to and took pleasure in-normally. But the picture she had wakened to an hour earlier spoiled it.

Unwilling to sleep on the second floor where a person had just died, Gigi had chosen the leather sofa in the used-to-be-game-room office. Windowless, dependent on no longer available electricity for light, the room encouraged her to sleep deeply and long. She missed the morning entirely and woke in the afternoon, in a darkness hardly less than she'd fallen asleep in. Hanging on the wall in front of her was the etching she had barely glanced at when poking around the day before. Now it loomed into her line of vision in the skinny light from the hall. A woman. On her knees. A knocked-down look, cast-up begging eyes, arms outstretched holding up her present on a platter to a lord. Gigi tiptoed over and leaned close to see who was the woman with the I-give-up face. "Saint Catherine of Siena" was engraved on a small plaque in the gilt frame. Gigi laughed-brass dicks hidden in a box; pudding tits exposed on a plate-but in fact it didn't feel funny. So when the boy she had seen in town the day before parked his car near the kitchen door and blew his horn, her interest in him had an edge of annoyance. Propped in the doorway she ate jam-covered bread while she listened to him and watched the war waged in his eyes. His smile was lovely and his voice attractive. "Been riding around looking all over for you. Heard you was out here. Thought you might be still."

"Who told you that?"

"A friend. Well, a friend of a friend."

"You mean that hearse dude?"

"Uh huh. Said you changed your mind about getting to the train station."

"News sure travels fast out here, even if nothing else does."

"We get around. Wanna go for a ride? Go as fast as you want." Gigi licked jam from her thumb and forefinger. She looked to the left toward the garden and thought she saw in the distance a glint of metal or maybe a mirror reflecting light. As from a state trooper's sunglasses.

"Gimme a minute," she said. "Change my clothes."

In the game room she put on a yellow skirt and a dark red top. Then she consulted her astrology chart before stuffing her belongings (and a few souvenirs) in her backpack which she slung into the car's rear seat.

"Hey," said K. D. "We just going for a little ride."

"Yeah," she answered, "but who knows? I might change my mind again."

They drove through mile after mile of sky-blue sky. Gigi had not really looked at the scenery from the train windows or the bus. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing out there. But speeding along in the Impala was more like cruising on a DC-10, and the nothing turned out to be sky-unignorable, custom-made, designer sky. Not empty either but full of breath and all the eye was meant for. "That's the shortest skirt I ever saw." He smiled his lovely smile.

"Minis," said Gigi. "In the real world they're called miniskirts."

"Don't they make people stare at you?"

"Stare. Drive for miles. Have car wrecks. Talk stupid."

"You must like it. Reckon that's what they're for, though."

"You explain your clothes; I'll explain mine. Where'd you get those pants, for instance?"

"What's wrong with them?"

"Nothing. Listen, you want to argue, take me back."

"No. No, I don't want to argue; I just want to… ride."

"Yeah? How fast?"

"Told you. Fast as I can."

"How long?"

"Long as you want."

"How far?"

"All the way."

The desert couple was big, Mikey said. From any angle you looked, he said, they took up the sky, moving, moving. Liar, thought Gigi; not this sky. This here sky was bigger than everything, including a woman with her breasts on a tray.

When Mavis pulled into the driveway, near the kitchen door, she slammed the brakes so hard her packages slid from the seat and fell beneath the dashboard. The figure sitting in the garden's red chair was totally naked. She could not see the face under the hat's brim but she knew it wore no sunglasses. A mere month she'd been away, and for three weeks of that time couldn't wait to get back. Something must have happened, she thought. To Mother. To Connie. At the squeal of the brakes, the sunning figure did not move. Only when she slammed the Cadillac door did the person sit up and push back the hat. Calling out, "Connie! Connie?" Mavis hurried toward the garden's edge. "Who the hell are you? Where's Connie?"

The naked girl yawned and scratched her pubic hair. "Mavis?" she asked.

Relieved to learn she was known, spoken of, at least, Mavis lowered her voice. "What are you doing out here like that? Where's Connie?"

"Like what? She's inside."

"You're naked!"

"Yeah. So? You want the cigar?"

"Do they know?" Mavis glanced toward the house. "Lady," said Gigi, "are you looking at something you never saw before or something you don't have or you a clothes freak or what?"

"There you are." Connie came down the steps, her arms wide, toward Mavis. "I missed you." They hugged and Mavis surrendered to the thump of the woman's heart against her own. "Who is she, Connie, and where are her clothes?"

"Oh, that's little Grace. She came the day after Mother died."

"Died? When?"

"Seven days now. Seven."

"But I brought the things. I have it all in the car."

"No use. Not for her anyway. My heart's all scrunched, but now you back I feel like cooking."

"You haven't been eating?" Mavis shot a cold glance at Gigi.

"A bit. Funeral foods. But now I'll cook fresh."

"There's plenty," said Gigi. "We haven't even touched the-"

"You put some clothes on!"

"You kiss my ass!"

"Do it, Grace," said Connie. "Go, like a good girl. Cover yourself we love you just the same."

"She ever hear of sunbathing?"

"Go on now."

Gigi went, exaggerating the switch of both the cheeks she had offered Mavis.

"What rock did she crawl out from under?" Mavis asked.

"Hush," said Connie. "Soon you'll like her."

No way, Mavis thought. No way at all. Mother's gone, but Connie's okay. I've been here almost three years, and this house is where we are. Us. Not her.

They did everything but slap each other, and finally they did that. What postponed the inevitable were loves forlorn and a very young girl in too tight clothes tapping on the screen door.

"You have to help me," she said. "You have to. I've been raped and it's almost August."

Only part of that was true.

Something was scratching on the pane. Again. Dovey turned over on her stomach, refusing to look out of the window each time she heard it. He wasn't there. He never came at night. Deliberately she drove her mind onto everyday things. What would she fix for supper tomorrow?