Alison Lurie - Last Resort

“Well, you know.” Barbie chomped on her raisin toast. “I mean, it doesn’t hafta be like something drastic,” she added, finally registering Molly’s tone and expression. “Mom says, with somebody from that kinda background, there’s always a charge against them on the books somewhere, or something in their past they don’t want to have come out.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. Like drugs maybe. Or Laverna could have been a hooker once, Mom thinks. Anyhow, she isn’t the kind of person a congressman could marry, even if he wanted to. See, in politics you need a wife with a good reputation and the right connections.”

“Like you,” Molly said. She swallowed another sigh.

“Well, sorta. Except I keep doing things wrong, like I told you.”

“It sounds as if your mother wants you to stay married,” Molly suggested.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Barbie admitted. “She said, if I wasn’t sure, I could tell myself I was doing it for Oklahoma.”

“Really!” Molly remarked, this time not troubling to keep her tone neutral. “And do you feel you have an obligation to Oklahoma?”

“I d’know.” Barbie’s voice trembled between a whisper and a wail. “I guess I do in a way. I mean, I’m not much use for anything else.”

Molly did not contradict her guest; her response had shifted from sympathy to a weary impatience. Barbie was what her husband used to call an Eeyore, someone who deliberately chose to be helpless and depressed. Why should I feel sorry for you? she thought. You have everything I’ve lost: youth, health, beauty—at least a plump blonde all-American prettiness—and a future. “I’m going to lie down for a little while now,” she said. “If you want anything else to eat, help yourself.”

Later the same day Jacko parked his truck in front of Molly’s house in Old Town. He had spent most of the morning buying a bed for his cousin Barbie, hauling it home, and wrestling it into Alvin’s pool house. Then he had grabbed some lunch and gone on to one of his regular gardening jobs, while his mother napped.

“Hi,” he said when Molly opened the door. “Barbie here?”

“Not now. She went on the Conch Train.”

“Oh, for shit’s sake.” Jacko made a face. The Conch Train was a gasoline-powered imitation old-fashioned locomotive, trailed by four open cars painted yellow. Actually there were several nearly identical trains, which all day took tourists round the island while the driver, through a loudspeaker system, described local sights.

“Come on in,” Molly said soothingly. “She should be back soon. Would you like some iced tea?”

“No,” Jacko nearly growled. “Oh, all right, why not? Sorry, I’m in a foul mood. It was great of you to let Barbie stay here last night, I don’t even remember if I thanked you.”

“Of course you thanked me. Here you are. Let’s sit outside.”

“The Conch Train,” Jacko repeated, following Molly through the house and onto her side deck. “That’s the sort of idiot thing Barbie would do.”

“She was very eager to go,” said Molly, who had never been on the train, though it passed her house continually. The day she and her husband first moved in, the loudspeaker had called the tourists’ attention to a large tropical tree with loose, flaky bark that grew in their yard. “On your left, just ahead, you will see a fine specimen of one of Key West’s native trees. It is a gumbo limbo, but natives call it the tourist tree, because it is always red and peeling.”

The first time Molly and her husband heard this joke they laughed. They heard it again soon afterward, and then at regular intervals until sunset. It did no good to shut the windows; the loudspeaker was clearly audible through the uninsulated walls of the house. Polite calls to the Conch Train office over the next few weeks accomplished nothing; the woman who answered the phone appeared to think that Molly should feel honored to have her tree noticed.

After hearing the joke approximately every twenty minutes for two weeks, Molly and her husband discussed having the tree removed. But it turned out that the gumbo limbo was a protected species; any tree service that destroyed it would lose its license and be liable for heavy damages, as would the Hopkinses. An acquaintance suggested pouring bleach into the roots, but the gumbo limbo appeared to like bleach.

Finally, after getting permission from the Historical Preservation Society (a lengthy process), Molly and her husband put up a fence which cut off their view and darkened the yard, but concealed the trunk of the tree. On one memorable day at the end of the season, the Conch Train passed in silence.

“I got a room in the pool house fixed up for Barbie,” Jacko said. “She’ll be out of your hair soon.” He set his glass down. “And in mine.”

“Maybe she can entertain your mother while you’re at work—take her to the tourist attractions.”

Jacko shook his head. “Mumsie wouldn’t like that. What she wants, as soon as she’s rested, is to go round gardening with me. She’s great with plants: most of what I know I learned from her.”

“Will Cousin Barbie go too?”

“Not if I can help it. She’ll have to take care of herself.”

“It sounds like that’s just what she can’t do,” Molly said.

“Yeah, really?” He laughed. “You know I warned you she’d have some sob story. So what’s the problem now?”

“Well.” Molly paused, wondering if she should repeat Barbie’s confidences to this unsympathetic audience. But no doubt he would hear soon enough. “You have to feel kind of sorry for her,” she began.

“Says who?” Jacko rejected the imperative.

“The problem is her husband, mainly. He’s been having an affair with some Las Vegas showgirl. Barbie wants to leave him, but if she gets a divorce the scandal will hurt his political career.”

“Why should she give a damn about that?”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t know that she does, but her mother seems to.”

“Yeah. She would.” Jacko scowled. “Aunt Myra has an obsession about politics. Her grandfather was a senator, and she thinks every man in the family should carry on the great tradition. She practically railroaded me into law school, and she was furious when I quit. And when it came out that I was gay she wanted to send me to a shrink so I could get cured, and nobody would ever know. Then I could be a senator too.”

Molly stifled a little sigh. Though it was not yet teatime she already felt tired. All these stories, all this emotion, she thought, as she had often thought before. When Howard was alive it had seemed natural; she had been part of it. Now she sometimes felt as if she were living in the epilogue of her own life, watching things happen to other people.

“I can’t quite see you as a senator,” she remarked, glancing at Jacko’s purple T-shirt and frayed denim cutoffs.

“Damn right.” He laughed. “Listen, I better be getting home; Mumsie’s nap should be over by now. Tell Cousin Boobie to call when she gets back.”

7

ABOUT A WEEK LATER, in the front room of Artemis Lodge, Jenny Walker sat behind the glass-topped desk with its hotel register, stack of brochures, and vase of orange lilies. This was her third day as Lee’s temporary morning guest clerk, and also her first paying job in twenty-five years. She would have been happy to help out for free, but Lee had insisted on the going rate. “Hell no. I’d feel like a cheapskate otherwise. Anyhow you’re not doing me a favor, you’re doing one for Polly Alter. She was wiped out, trying to work here and get ready for her show next month.”

But really, Jenny had explained, Lee was doing her a favor. If she weren’t here she’d be at home brooding. The day after the party Wilkie had frozen up again. He remained shut in his room every day, and when he came out it was as if he were there still. He was keeping the last chapter of his book back for more revisions, so there was nothing for her to check or comment on or type. When she’d asked again if she couldn’t help somehow, he said that there would be plenty for her to do soon enough. His thin, distant tone made Jenny wonder, not for the first time, if he were angry with her about something. But when she diffidently suggested this her husband denied it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he had said, in a way that seemed to contradict the denial.