"Like a prince," she said. "Turn around."
Ben spun around in a circle pretending to dance. Lillian rose and went to him. "Let's practice those steps once more," she said, taking his left hand and putting her arm around his neck. They danced in silence for a moment or two with Ben watching his feet and Lillian smiling at his adolescent discomfiture in formal dress.
"Any girl would be proud to go to the prom with you," Lillian said.
"Mary Anne acts like she's mad that I asked her," Ben replied.
"She gets that from your father's side of the family. Let's sit down and breathe in the river. There's nothing more beautiful than a southern night in late spring," she said, sitting on the top step again and taking out a cigarette. Ben fumbled to take her matches away from her, then lit a match, the glow of the flame catching her for a moment, framing her in the nimbus of its brief life. "Thank you, darling. At least I've taught you to be a gentleman. That's something no one will ever be able to take away from you."
"Mama?" Ben asked, his eyes staring into the darkness. "Am I southern?"
"What a silly question. Why do you ask, sugah?"
"Because I want to know."
"Of course you are, darling. You were born in Georgia and you've always lived below the Mason-Dixon Line."
"There are times when I don't feel southern, Mama, when I don't feel much of anything. Philip Turner knows everything about this town, knows every person in it, knows a story about every house we pass and the history of every person we see. I don't know anyone's history, not even my own. I do know that Dad is midwestern and Irish. And I know that you're southern. Sammy Wertzberger is southern and so is Mr. Loring and Mr. Dacus. But I'm not. I don't talk like a southerner and most of the time I don't think like a southerner. I'm really not anything. Do you know what I mean?"
"I have worried about it some, sugah. All the boys I grew up with could hunt and fish, knew what to wear, had a strong feeling about the land, and about the traditions of their homeland. You've got to stay put to have this. You can't move every other year and be anything but a transient. I've worried that my children would grow up and be neither southern nor Yankee but something far worse—that my children would be nothing but geographical mulattos with no roots. That's why I take you back to Atlanta every time your father goes overseas. I want you to get to feel that Mamaw's house is your real home, the place you go back to when you think about where you belong. I've always hoped you would build up a storehouse of rich memories from that house. It's also why I encouraged your nights out with Toomer. He was all the South used to be and all it should still be and all it's never going to be again. So is Arrabelle. You can look into her face and see a most glorious and noble history of pain and even of victory. I knew when Arrabelle walked in my back door that I would hire her and we would become friends. Some of the strongest and most admirable people I have ever known came to me through kitchen doors. But to answer your question, Ben, and I think it's a most important question, indeed—you are not completely southern but you are more southern than anything else and I'd rather be almost southern than almost Queen of England."
"Can you be southern if you want to be?" Ben asked.
"No," Lillian said. "It doesn't work like that. A southerner is. And a southerner knows he is."
They heard Bull give a piercing wolf whistle from his vantage point on the sofa and they knew that Mary Anne was coming down the stairs. Together they rose and entered the house.
The dress was blue with white ruffles at the shoulder and Mary Anne made her way down the stairs cautiously, afraid of tripping. She had borrowed a string of pearls from Lillian and a pair of long white gloves from Paige Hedgepath. She was not wearing her glasses and she held tightly to the bannister during her descent.
"You look absolutely stunning, sugah," Lillian said.
"I didn't know you were so stacked, sportsfans," Bull crowed.
"Hush, Bull," Lillian admonished," before God or somebody hears you."
"How sicko can you get?" Mary Anne said, but she blushed with a forbidden pleasure at the compliment. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Ben pinned an orchid corsage on her, bowed deeply, offered his arm, and they promenaded across the living room to the sofa where Bull lay, pivoted, then walked to the stairs again. Karen and Matt had come from the kitchen to watch.
"Wait here while I get my Kodak," Lillian said, going toward the kitchen.
"You look beautiful, Mary Anne," Karen said.
"Thank you, Karen. But I'm tired of all these honors befalling me because of my beauty. I've been homecoming queen for two years in a row now and it just isn't fair to the other girls. But this year when the captain of the football team begs me for a date, I'll just politely refuse and let the honor fall to some other fair maiden."
"Boy, what a joke that is," Matt said. "You a homecoming queen."
"Go twit out the window and find Peter Pan, Tinkerbell," Mary Anne snapped.
"O.K., Dad," Matt said turning to his father, "belt her one for that or it's gonna be Simba Barracuda for ol' four eyes."
"Shut your yap, Matt," Bull said.
"Hold still for a picture," Lillian said, returning with a small camera with a flash attachment.
"Where are your glasses, Mary Anne?" Karen asked.
"They detract from my heavenly beauty, so I'm not going to wear them. Of course, I'm blind as a stone without them. Ben's not only going to be my date tonight. He's going to be my Seeing Eye dog."
"You hogs better hurry," Bull said, glancing at his watch. "Your reservations at the Club are at 1900 on the button."
"Let's see you walk across the room just one more time, sugah," Lillian said to Mary Anne," only this time remember what I told you. Lift your legs high beneath the dress. Prance like a pony."
Once again Mary Anne crossed the room under the careful scrutiny of her mother's gaze.
"You got that walk from your father's side of the family. But that's much better. Now give me a kiss, both of you, and be off to the Club."
As Lillian kissed Ben, she looked into his eyes and said, "Your eyes come from my side of the family, Ben. They are a brilliant blue."
"Dad has blue eyes, too, Mama," Karen said.
"Yes, but his blue eyes are washed out, almost colorless. Ben has Barrett eyes. All of you do. Eyes with character and depth."
"Yeah," Bull said. "My eyes ain't nothin'."
"We've got to hurry," Ben said.
As Ben opened the car door for Mary Anne, Matthew appeared on the porch and shouted," You look nice, Mary Anne," then ran back inside the house.
"What do you think we got from Dad's side of the family?" Mary Anne asked Ben as they drove to the air station. "Mom doesn't give the beast too much credit for passing on good genes."
"Let's figure it out," Ben answered. "What would Mom attribute to Dad's side? The dread Chicago side."
"Freckles, pimples, a vile temper, a funny walk, wide feet, stubby fingers, a tendency to be alcoholics, and madness," Mary Anne suggested.
"True," Ben agreed. "All that comes from Dad's side of the family. Also things like boogers. Our boogers come from his side of the family."
"Very inferior boogers," Mary Anne said. "Her side of the family produces Grade-A, government-inspected boogers, or so she thinks."
"Also we inherited the turds of the Meecham family," Ben said. "Mom's side of the family poops vanilla ice cream."
"That's not true," Mary Anne said. "They poop moonbeams, dimes and quarters, and sanctifying grace."
"You realize, of course, how guilty I feel talking behind Mom's back. You realize that our mother is a saint," Ben said.
"Of course she's a saint."
"God likes her a lot."
"She's also a dangwallet. But her being a dangwallet fits in perfectly with her conception of what a saint should be. Lillian is perfect. Absolutely perfect. She is beautiful. She is good. She is holy. She prays all the time. And she is married to The Creep. Her sainthood is assured and
God has no choice but to like her."
Ben said," I only wish she would take herself a bit less seriously. I mean just the other day I heard Mrs. Grantham tell her that she was a saint on this earth. And do you know what Mom did?"
"I'm afraid to ask. Truly afraid."
"Mom just nodded her head as though she agreed one hundred percent with Mrs. Grantham and was pleased as punch that Mrs. Grantham was so, so . . . you know, so perceptive."
"Mom has only one fault. She has no faults. That's why a lot of people hate her guts. I've known some women who have pretended to like her who really hate her and will always hate her. I've seen them look at her when she wasn't looking back."
"I'll take her over Dad any day."
"Not me, brother man," Mary Anne said with conviction. "Dad's not so bad. I remember when I was a kid and Dad used to have fun by punching me in the fontanel and I thought he was a wee bit wanting as a father. But not now. That was just Dad preparing me for life as he knows it. Dad is Bull Meecham and he's never pretended to be anything else. Sometimes he is the beast, I admit, but he is a consistent beast."
The car pulled up to the main gate and Ben pulled down the sun visor and tried to age his face five years by assuming a stern, no-nonsense expression. When the sentry snapped a salute at the car, Ben nodded his approval and said," Good evening, son."
"You got that from Dad's side of the family," Mary Anne said as Ben drove toward the Club.
The maitre d' of the Officers' Club seated them at a candlelit table in the center of the room. There were very few couples dining in the main room, but the bar was crammed with young Marine officers, their wives, and their dates. Ben ordered for both himself and Mary Anne since Mary Anne could not decipher a single letter from the menu without her glasses. She blamed the dim light.
Before the first course arrived, the headwaiter brought a dozen red roses and presented them to Mary Anne.
"Who sent them?" Mary Anne asked, frowning as though she were the victim of a joke or a conspiracy to embarrass her.
"Read the card," Ben said.
"I can't read it and you know I can't read it," she said. "The El Cheapo Marines use this candlelight because they hate spending a dollar or two on electric lights."
Ben took the card and, holding it close to the candle, read aloud:" 'Here's twelve roses for the prettiest girl at the hop. Don't tell the dangwallet or shell jawbone about the cost of the flowers. Have a good time. The Great Santini.'"
"Dad is so childishly sentimental," Mary Anne said. "Isn't this ridiculous?"
"I thought you were going to come up with a dead word," Ben said.
"Dad is an assinego," Mary Anne said promptly.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that he's a young, silly ass sometimes."
"What are you?"
"I am a damirep. A very flighty woman, too free in her manners."
"Did you look up butthole?" Ben asked.
"You're just jealous, Ben. You don't know any big words you haven't learned from Mr. Loring's vocabulary lists. It makes you mad that I'm discovering things about words that you'll never know because you're a jump-shooter."
"Well, you're just showing off learning words that aren't even used anymore. And it doesn't do any good to insult someone when they don't even know they're being insulted."
"I feel sorry for dead words," Mary Anne said. "Have you ever wondered how a perfectly good word dies and a useful word at that? If I use a dead word then I think it's possible it can come alive again."
"God, that's weird," Ben said. "Do you know what I worry about, Mary Anne? I'm worried that someday I'm going to be visiting you in some nut house where you'll have turned into a rutabaga or something. I can see me bringing you toothpaste and deodorant and you'll be sitting there with your brain burned out, drooling in your shoes. And some nurse will say to you, 'Rutabaga, do you remember your brother Ben?'"
"And I'll say, 'Yes, I remember the sin-eater.' That's my dead word for you, Ben. It was an ancient custom at funerals to hire poor people to take upon themselves the sins of the deceased. You know, to eat the sins of the rich. But you, Ben, would be much too pious to eat sins for money. You'd do it just to be good."
"This is why you never have any friends, Mary Anne. You're always trying to be so goddam smart and know-it-all."
"When I die, Ben, I want you to eat all my sins just like you're eating that salad there. I want to shoot like a rocket up to heaven. For all eternity, I want to float like a Sputnik around God's head. All because you chowed down on my acts of commission and omission."
"You don't always have to show off what you know," Ben said.
"If I don't show it off, feces face, then who's going to know it?"
"You'll know," Ben answered. "That's what's important. I've always admired quiet people who have achieved a lot much more than I have loud, obnoxious people who brag about their achievements."
"You have?" Mary Anne said sarcastically.
"Keep your voice down," Ben whispered. "People are beginning to notice us."
"I wish they gave a Congressional Medal of Honor for piety. Saint Lillian is the Patron Saint of piety, but you ought to receive some kind of recognition for your efforts. When Saint Lillian is assumed into heaven, then you're going to be a shoo-in for the title of Patron Saint. You're so sweet, Ben, so innocent, so God Damn Christ-like. God missed a good bet not having you born in Bethlehem."
"Why are you attacking me? I'm the one who's taking you to the Junior-Senior."
"I'm attacking you, Ben, because you are the one who is taking me to the Junior-Senior. There are two things about you I can't stand, golden boy. One is your sickening fake modesty. The other is your goodness. Just like Dad can't stop drinking, you can't stop being good. You can't be satisfied with being an average nice guy, you've got to be the nicest guy that anyone will ever meet. But I've noticed that you're always good in ways where people can see it and compliment you on it. And by far the best thing you've ever done, the grandest act of all, the crowning glory is taking your fat, freckled sister to the Junior-Senior. Long Live Saint Benjamin! Who asked you to take me? Mom or Dad?"
"No one," Ben said, cutting the steak just brought by the waiter.
"How noble."
"No one, I said," Ben flared.
"It was just natural sugar-coated goodness. Pure saintliness."
"That's right. I'm beloved of the Lord."
"Let me say one last thing, jock brother, and then I'll become sweet Mary Anne again."
"Sweet Mary Anne? You'll have to introduce me," Ben said, attacking his steak and talking with his mouth full.
"You and Mom can hurt people more with your piety than Dad can ever hurt with his temper. You always know where Dad stands and he knows where he stands, but no one will ever know where Golden Ben and Darling Lillian stand, not even Golden Ben and Darling Lillian," Mary Anne said, ignoring her food. "You know why Dad hits you—not all the time, but sometimes. He sees her piety in a male face and sometimes he can't help but hit it. If he can beat it out of you, he thinks maybe that some of it will be drained out of her."
"If you don't eat, Mary Anne, I'm going to throw you in the swimming pool or pour A-I Sauce on your orchid."
"You wouldn't do that. You're the Perfect One."
"Eat," Ben ordered.
For several minutes they ate in absolute silence. Ben was acutely aware that the couples at the other tables were staring at them with a mixture of curiosity and chagrin. Struggling with her steak, Mary Anne looked hunched and bruised beneath the pale blue dress that covered her delicately, as though the dust had been scraped from a butterfly wing. She had to bring her face close to the plate to see what she was eating. Ben wanted to say something to hurt her, but could not force himself to do it. She would attribute it to measureless wellsprings of piety or stewardship of the phantom herds that bled out the milk of human kindness. But it was something different and far deeper, he thought. Though they had grown up in the same ho
usehold and were shaped by the same two parents, Mary Anne had been damaged more severely in the passage. He had grown up to be afraid, but he had not grown up to suffer. He was not a member of that forsaken elect. But his date across the table was.
Finally, he said," Here's what I figured, Mary Anne. Next year, I'll be in college and this will be the last time we ever go out together like this and anyway I'm going to miss you and you've been my best friend and who cares anyway."
"I think I'll kill myself," Mary Anne answered.
"Good."
"No, I mean really."
"I mean really, too. I mean really good," Ben said. "Anyway, you're too chicken to do it."
"You'll be sorry, Ben. When the doctor pulls the blanket over my head, you'll become hysterical, because you had a chance to stop me and did nothing. They say that a suicide always gives off warning signals and that's what I'm doing right now. This is a warning signal."
"Why are you going to kill yourself?"
"Because I'm real depressed," Mary Anne answered.
"You're always depressed."
"Yeah, but this time I'm real depressed. Suicidally depressed and, buddy-roo, you can't get more depressed than that."
"How you going to do it?" Ben asked.
"Painlessly. That's the most important thing. I want there to be no pain. None whatsoever. And no blood. I will not tolerate a bloody corpse. I want to be lovely in death."
"Why don't you die on the operating table while you're having a nose job."
"That's one thing that always bothered me about you, Ben. You get serious when the world's screaming with laughter around you. Then you get witty when you're trying to talk a very valuable human being out of killing herself."
"I just wanted you to be lovely in death. C'mon," Ben said looking at his watch," we've got a rendezvous in Paris."
The theme of the dance was Gaïté Parisienne and the gymnasium where Ben had once thrown up jump shots and broken a boy's arm was decorated in one corner with La Tour Eiffel and in another with a cardboard frontispiece of Notre Dame. Beside the home bleachers, Ben and Mary Anne walked past les boutiques de Paris as" Moon River" was played by the band hired for the evening. The band was dressed as Apache dancers and three of the female teachers came modestly attired in cancan outfits.