In the Land of Dreamy Dreams Page 7

  As she walked along in the August evening she dreamed of Sandy sitting on her bed playing his harmonica while she pretended to sleep. In the dream he was playing an old Bob Dylan love song, the sort of thing she liked to listen to before he upgraded her taste in music.

  Earlier that afternoon Nora Jane had rolled a pair of shorts, an old shirt, and some sandals into a neat bundle and hidden it in the low-hanging branches of the oak tree where Sandy had planted her money.

  A scrawny-looking black kid was dozing in the roots of the tree. He promised to keep an eye on her things.

  “If I don’t come back by tomorrow afternoon you can have this stuff,” she told him. “The sandals were handmade in Brazil.”

  “Thanks,” the black kid said. “I’ll watch it for you till then. You running away from home or what?”

  “I’m going to rob a bank,” she confided.

  The black kid giggled and shot her the old peace sign.

  Wesley walked into the bar where Prescott, Jody, and the judge were all alone watching the evening news on television.

  “Aren’t you getting tired of that goddamn poll,” Prescott said to him. “Emily Anne won’t even answer her phone. A jokes a joke, Wesley. I better put on my suit and get on over there.”

  “Not yet,” Wesley said. “The sun isn’t all the way down yet. Wait till we open the jar. You promised.” Prescott was drunk, but Wesley was drunker. Not that either of them ever showed their whiskey.

  “I promised I wouldn’t get married unless you found one boy or man all day who thought it was an unqualified good idea to get married. I didn’t ever say I was interested in waiting around for the outcome of a vote. Come on and open up that jar before Emily Anne gets any madder.”

  “What makes you think there is a single ballot in favor of you getting married?” Wesley asked.

  “I don’t know if there is or there isn’t,” Prescott answered. “So go on and let the judge open that goddamn jar.”

  “Look at him, Wesley,” Jody said delightedly. “He ain’t even signed the papers yet and he’s already acting like a married man. Already worried about getting home in time for dinner. If Miss Emily Anne Hughes wakes up in the morning wearing a ring from Prescott, I say she takes the cake. I say she’s gone and caught a whale on a ten-pound test line.”

  “Open the jar,” Prescott demanded, while the others howled with laughter.

  Nora Jane stepped into the bar, closed the door behind her, and turned the lock. She kept the pistol pointed at the four men who were clustered around the cash register.

  “Please be quiet and put your hands over your heads before I kill one of you,” she said politely, waving the gun with one hand and reaching behind herself with the other to draw the window shade that said CLOSED in red letters.

  Prescott and the judge raised their hands first, then Wesley.

  “Do as you are told,” the judge said to Jody in his deep voice. “Jody, do what that woman tells you to do and do it this instant.” Jody added his hands to the six already pointing at the ceiling fan.

  “Get in there,” Nora Jane directed, indicating the ladies’ room at the end of the bar. “Please hurry before you make me angry. I ran away from DePaul’s Hospital yesterday afternoon and I haven’t had my medication and I become angry very easily.”

  The judge held the door open, and the four men crowded into the small bathroom.

  “Face the window,” Nora Jane ordered, indicating Claiborne’s famous repair job. The astonished men obeyed silently as she closed the bathroom door and turned the skeleton key in its lock and dropped it on the floor under the bar.

  “Please be very quiet so I won’t get worried and need to shoot through the door,” she said. “Be awfully quiet. I am an alcoholic and I need some of this whiskey. I need some whiskey in the worst way.”

  Nora Jane changed into the nun’s habit, wiping the makeup off her face with a bar rag and stuffing the old clothes into the bag. Next she opened the cash register, removed all the bills without counting them, and dropped them into the bag. On second thought she added the pile of IOUs and walked back to the door of the ladies’ room.

  “Please be a little quieter,” she said in a husky voice. “I’m getting very nervous.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss. We are cooperating to the fullest extent,” the judge’s bench voice answered.

  “That’s nice,” Nora Jane said. “That’s very nice.”

  She pinned the little veil to her hair, picked up the bag, and walked out the door. She looked all around, but there was no one on the street but a couple of kids riding tricycles.

  As she passed the card table she stopped, marked a ballot, folded it neatly, and dropped it into the Mason jar.

  Then, like a woman in a dream, she walked on down the street, the rays of the setting sun making her a path all the way to the bus stop at the corner of Annunciation and Nashville Avenue.

  Making her a path all the way to mountains and valleys and fields, to rivers and streams and oceans. To a boy who was like no other. To the source of all water.

  In the Land of Dreamy Dreams

  On the third of May, 1977, LaGrande McGruder drove out onto the Huey P. Long Bridge, dropped two Davis Classics and a gut-strung PDP tournament racket into the Mississippi River, and quit playing tennis forever.

  “That was it,” she said. “That was the last goddamn straw.” She heaved a sigh, thinking this must be what it feels like to die, to be through with something that was more trouble than it was worth.

  As long as she could remember LaGrande had been playing tennis four or five hours a day whenever it wasn’t raining or she didn’t have a funeral to attend. In her father’s law office was a whole cabinet full of her trophies.

  After the rackets sank LaGrande dumped a can of brand-new Slazenger tennis balls into the river and stood for a long time watching the cheerful, little, yellow constellation form and re-form in the muddy current.

  “Jesus Fucking A Christ,” she said to herself. “Oh, well,” she added, “maybe now I can get my arms to be the same size for the first time in my life.”

  LaGrande leaned into the bridge railing, staring past the white circles on her wrists, souvenirs of twenty years of wearing sweatbands in the fierce New Orleans sunlight, and on down to the river where the little yellow constellation was overtaking a barge.

  “That goddamn little new-rich Yankee bitch,” she said, kicking the bridge with her leather Tretorns.

  There was no denying it. There was no undoing it. At ten o’clock that morning LaGrande McGruder, whose grandfather had been president of the United States Lawn Tennis Association, had cheated a crippled girl out of a tennis match, had deliberately and without hesitation made a bad call in the last point of a crucial game, had defended the call against loud protests, taken a big drink of her Gatorade, and proceeded to win the next twelve games while her opponent reeled with disbelief at being done out of her victory.

  At exactly three minutes after ten that morning she had looked across the net at the impassive face of the interloper who was about to humiliate her at her own tennis club and she had changed her mind about honor quicker than the speed of light. “Out,” she had said, not giving a damn whether the serve was in or out. “Nice try.”

  “It couldn’t be out,” the crippled girl said. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” LaGrande said. “I wouldn’t have called it unless I was sure.”

  “Are you positive?” the crippled girl said.

  “For God’s sake,” LaGrande said, “look, if you don’t mind, let’s hurry up and get this over with. I have to be at the country club for lunch.” That ought to get her, LaGrande thought. At least they don’t let Jews into the country club yet. At least that’s still sacred.

  “Serving,” the crippled girl said, trying to control her rage.

  LaGrande took her position at the back of the court, reached up to adjust her visor, and caught the eye of old Claiborne Redding, who was sitting on
the second-floor balcony watching the match. He smiled and waved. How long has he been standing there, LaGrande wondered. How long has that old fart been watching me? But she was too busy to worry about Claiborne now. She had a tennis match to save, and she was going to save it if it was the last thing she ever did in her life.

  The crippled girl set her mouth into a tight line and prepared to serve into the forehand court. Her name was Roxanne Miller, and she had traveled a long way to this morning’s fury. She had spent thousands of dollars on private tennis lessons, hundreds of dollars on equipment, and untold time and energy giving cocktail parties and dinner parties for the entrenched players who one by one she had courted and blackmailed and finagled into giving her matches and return matches until finally one day she would catch them at a weak moment and defeat them. She kept a mental list of such victories. Sometimes when she went to bed at night she would pull the pillows over her head and lie there imagining herself as a sort of Greek figure of justice, sitting on a marble chair in the clouds, holding a scroll, a little parable of conquest and revenge.

  It had taken Roxanne five years to fight and claw and worm her way into the ranks of respected Lawn Tennis Club Ladies. For five years she had dragged her bad foot around the carefully manicured courts of the oldest and snottiest tennis club in the United States of America.

  For months now her ambitions had centered around LaGrande. A victory over LaGrande would mean she had arrived in the top echelons of the Lawn Tennis Club Ladies.

  A victory over LaGrande would surely be followed by invitations to play in the top doubles games, perhaps even in the famous Thursday foursome that played on Rena Clark’s private tennis court. Who knows, Roxanne dreamed, LaGrande might even ask her to be her doubles partner. LaGrande’s old doubles partners were always retiring to have babies. At any moment she might need a new one. Roxanne would be there waiting, the indefatigable handicapped wonder of the New Orleans tennis world.

  She had envisioned this morning’s victory a thousand times, had seen herself walking up to the net to shake LaGrande’s hand, had planned her little speech of condolence, after which the two of them would go into the snack bar for lunch and have a heart-to-heart talk about rackets and balls and backhands and forehands and volleys and lobs.

  Roxanne basked in her dreams. It did not bother her that LaGrande never returned her phone calls, avoided her at the club, made vacant replies to her requests for matches. Roxanne had plenty of time. She could wait. Sooner or later she would catch LaGrande in a weak moment.

  That moment came at the club’s 100th Anniversary Celebration. Everyone was drunk and full of camaraderie. The old members were all on their best behavior, trying to be extra nice to the new members and pretend like the new members were just as good as they were even if they didn’t belong to the Boston Club or the Southern Yacht Club or Comus or Momus or Proteus.

  Roxanne cornered LaGrande while she was talking to a famous psychiatrist-player from Washington, a bachelor who was much adored in tennis circles for his wit and political connections.

  LaGrande was trying to impress him with how sane she was and hated to let him see her irritation when Roxanne moved in on them.

  “When are you going to give me that match you promised me?” Roxanne asked, looking wistful, as if this were something the two of them had been discussing for years.

  “I don’t know,” LaGrande said. “I guess I just stay so busy. This is Semmes Talbot, from Washington. This is Roxanne, Semmes. I’m sorry. I can’t remember your last name. You’ll have to help me.”

  “Miller,” Roxanne said. “My name is Miller. Really now, when will you play with me?”

  “Well, how about Monday?” LaGrande heard herself saying. “I guess I could do it Monday. My doubles game was canceled.” She looked up at the doctor to see if he appreciated how charming she was to everyone, no matter who they were.

  “Fine,” Roxanne said. “Monday’s fine. I’ll be here at nine. I’ll be counting on it so don’t let me down.” She laughed. “I thought you’d never say yes. I was beginning to think you were afraid I’d beat you.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” LaGrande said, “anyone can beat me, I don’t take tennis very seriously anymore, you know. I just play enough to keep my hand in.”

  “Who was that?” Semmes asked when Roxanne left them. “She certainly has her nerve!”

  “She’s one of the new members,” LaGrande said. “I really try so hard not to be snotty about them. I really do believe that every human being is just as valuable as everyone else, don’t you? And it doesn’t matter a bit to me what anyone’s background is, but some of the new people are sort of hard to take. They’re so, oh, well, so eager.”

  Semmes looked down the front of her silk blouse and laughed happily into her aristocratic eyes. “Well, watch out for that one,” he said. “There’s no reason for anyone as pretty as you to let people make you uncomfortable.”

  Across the room Roxanne collected Willie and got ready to leave the party. She was on her way home to begin training for the match.

  Willie was glad to leave. He didn’t like hanging around places where he wasn’t wanted. He couldn’t imagine why Roxanne wanted to spend all her time playing tennis with a bunch of snotty people.

  Roxanne and Willie were new members. Willie’s brand-new 15 million dollars and the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club’s brand-new $700,000 dollar mortgage had met at a point in history, and Willie’s application for membership had been approved by the board and railroaded past the watchful noses of old Claiborne Redding and his buddies. Until then the only Jewish member of the club had been a globetrotting Jewish bachelor who knew his wines, entertained lavishly at Antoine’s, and had the courtesy to stay in Europe most of the time.

  Willie and Roxanne were something else again. “What in the hell are we going to do with a guy who sells ties and a crippled woman who runs around Audubon Park all day in a pair of tennis shorts,” Claiborne said, pulling on a pair of the thick white Australian wool socks he wore to play in. The committee had cornered him in the locker room.

  “The membership’s not for him,” they said. “He doesn’t even play. You’ll never see him. And she really isn’t a cripple. One leg is a little bit shorter than the other one, that’s all.”

  “I don’t know,” Claiborne said. “Not just Jews, for God’s sake, but Yankee Jews to boot.”

  “The company’s listed on the American Stock Exchange, Claiborne. It was selling at 16½ this morning, up from 5. And he buys his insurance from me. Come on, you’ll never see them. All she’s going to do is play a little tennis with the ladies.”

  Old Claiborne rued the day he had let himself be talked into Roxanne and Willie. The club had been forced to take in thirty new families to pay for its new building and some of them were Jews, but, as Claiborne was fond of saying, at least the rest of them tried to act like white people.

  Roxanne was something else. It seemed to him that she lived at the club. The only person who hung around the club more than Roxanne was old Claiborne himself. Pretty soon she was running the place. She wrote The Lawn Tennis Newsletter. She circulated petitions to change the all-white dress rule. She campaigned for more court privileges for women. She dashed in and out of the bar and the dining room making plans with the waiters and chefs for Mixed Doubles Nights, Round Robin Galas, Benefit Children’s Jamborees, Saturday Night Luaus.

  Claiborne felt like his club was being turned into a cruise ship.

  On top of everything else Roxanne was always trying to get in good with Claiborne. Every time he settled down on the balcony to watch a match she came around trying to talk to him, talking while the match was going on, remembering the names of his grandchildren, complimenting him on their serves and backhands and footwork, taking every conceivable liberty, as if at any moment she might start showing up at their weddings and debuts.

  Claiborne thought about Roxanne a lot. He was thinking about her this morning when he arrived at the club and saw her cream-co
lored Rolls-Royce blocking his view of the Garth Humphries Memorial Plaque. He was thinking about her as he got a cup of coffee from a stand the ladies had taken to setting up by the sign-in board. This was some more of her meddling, he thought, percolated coffee in Styrofoam cups with plastic spoons and some kind of powder instead of cream.

  At the old clubhouse waiters had brought steaming cups of thick chicory-flavored café au lait out onto the balcony with cream and sugar in silver servers.

  Claiborne heaved a sigh, pulled his pants out of his crotch, and went up to the balcony to see what the morning would bring.

  He had hardly reached the top of the stairs when he saw Roxanne leading LaGrande to a deserted court at the end of the property. My God in Heaven, he thought, how did she pull that off? How in the name of God did she get hold of Leland’s daughter.

  Leland McGruder had been Claiborne’s doubles partner in their youth. Together they had known victory and defeat in New Orleans and Jackson and Monroe and Shreveport and Mobile and Atlanta and as far away as Forest Hills during one never to be forgotten year when they had thrown their rackets into a red Ford and gone off together on the tour.

  Down on the court LaGrande was so aggravated she could barely be civil. How did I end up here, she thought, playing second-class tennis against anyone who corners me at a party.

  LaGrande was in a bad mood all around. The psychiatrist had squired her around all weekend, fucked her dispassionately in someone’s garçonnière, and gone back to Washington without making further plans to see her.

  She bounced a ball up and down a few times with her racket, thinking about a line of poetry that kept occurring to her lately whenever she played tennis. “Their only monument the asphalt road, and a thousand lost golf balls.”

  “Are you coming to Ladies Day on Wednesday?” Roxanne was saying, “we’re going to have a great time. You really ought to come. We’ve got a real clown coming to give out helium balloons, and we’re going to photograph the winners sitting on his lap for the newsletter. Isn’t that a cute idea?”