Nora Jane (9 page)

“Energy,” she was fond of saying. “Energy. That’s all. There’s nothing else.” She imagined herself as a little glowworm in
a sea of dark branches, spreading light to the whole forest. She was using Sandy to keep her batteries charged. She liked
to get in bed with him at night and charge up, then tell him her theories about energy and how he could have all the other
women he wanted, because she, Mirium Sallisaw, was above human jealousy and didn’t care. Sandy was only twenty-two years old.
He believed everything she told him. He even believed she was dying to meet Nora Jane. He thought of Mirium as this brilliant
businesswoman who would jump at a chance to have someone as smart as Nora Jane help drive patients back and forth across the
border.

Nora Jane and Sandy got to Mirium’s house late in the afternoon. They parked in the parking lot and walked across a lawn with
Greek statues set here and there as if the decorator hadn’t been able to decide where they should go. Statues of muses faced
the parking lot. Statues of heroes looked out upon the sea. Twin statues of cupid guarded the doorway.

Nora Jane and Sandy opened the door and stepped into the foyer. It was dark inside the house. All the drapes were closed.
The only light came from recessed fixtures near the ceiling. A young man in a silk shirt and elegant pointed shoes came walking
toward them. “Hello, Sandy,” he said. “Mother’s in the back. Go tell her you’re here.”

“This is Maurice,” Sandy said. “He’s Mirium’s son. He’s a genius, aren’t you, Maurice? Listen, did you give Mirium my message?
Does she know Nora Jane’s coming?”

“We’ve got dinner reservations at Blanchard’s. They have fresh salmon. Mimi called. Do you like salmon?” he said to Nora Jane.
“I worship it. It’s all I eat.”

“I’ve never given it much thought,” she said. “I don’t think much about what I eat.”

“Maurice takes chemistry courses at the college,” Sandy said. “Mirium’s making him into a chemist.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “That must be interesting.”

“Well, profitable. I’ll make some dough if I stick to it. Sandy, why don’t you go on back and tell her you’re here. She’s
in the exercise room with Mimi. Tell her I’m getting hungry.” Sandy disappeared down a long hall.

Maurice took Nora Jane into a sunken living room with sofas arranged around a marble coffee table. There were oriental boxes
on the table and something that looked like a fire extinguisher.

“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll play you some music. I’ve got a new tape some friends of mine made. It’s going to be big. Warner’s
has it and Twentieth Century-Fox is interested. Million Bucks, that’s the name of the group. The leader’s name is Million
Bills. No kidding, he had it changed. Listen to this.” Maurice pushed some buttons on the side of the marble table and the
music came on, awful erratic music, a harp and a lot of electronic keyboards and guitars and synthesizers. The harp would
play a few notes, then the electrical instruments would shout it down. “Pretty chemical, huh? Feel that energy? They’re going
to be big.” He was staring off into the recessed light, one hand on the emerald embedded in his ear.

Nora Jane couldn’t think of anything to say. She settled back into the sofa cushions. It was cool and dark in the room. The
cushions she was leaning into were the softest things she had ever felt in her life. They felt alive, like some sort of hair.
She reached her hands behind her. “What are these cushions?” she said. “What are they made of?”

“They’re Mirium’s old fur coats. She wanted drapes but there wasn’t enough.”

“They’re made of fur coats?”

“Yeah. Before that they were animals. Crazy, huh? Chemical? Look, if you want a joint they’re different kinds in those boxes.
That red one’s Colombian and the blue one is some stuff we’re getting from Arkansas. Heavy. Really heavy. There’s gas in the
canister if you’d rather have that. I quit doing it. Too sweet for me. I don’t like a sweet taste.”

“Could I have a glass of water?” she asked. “It was a long drive.” She was sitting up, trying not to touch the cushions. “Sure,”
he said. “I’ll get you some. Just a minute.” He had taken a tube of something out of his pocket and was applying it to his
lips. “This is a new gloss. It’s dynamite. Mint and lemon mixed together. Wild!” Then, so quickly Nora Jane didn’t have time
to resist, Maurice sat down beside her and put his mouth on hers. He was very strong for a boy who looked so thin and he was
pressing her down into the fur pillows. Her mouth was full of the taste of mint and lemon and something tingly, like an anesthetic.
For a moment she thought he was trying to kill her. “Get off of me,” she said. She pushed against him with all her might.
He sat up and looked away. “I just wanted you to get the full effect.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen. Isn’t it a drag?”

“I don’t know. I’d never have guessed you were a day over four. Three or four.”

“I guess it’s my new stylist,” he said, as if he didn’t know what she meant. “I’ve got this woman in Marin. Marilee at Plato’s.
It takes forever to get there. But it’s worth it. I mean, that woman understands hair….”

Sandy reappeared with a woman wearing gray slacks and a dark sweater. She looked as if she smiled about once a year. She held
out her hand, keeping the other one on Sandy’s arm. “Well,” she said. “We’ve been hearing about you. Sandy’s told us all about
your exploits together in New Orleans. He says you can do some impressive tricks with your voice. How about letting us hear
some.”

“I don’t do tricks,” Nora Jane said. “I don’t even sing anymore.”

“Well, I guess that’s that. Did Sandy fill you in on the operation we’ve got going down here? It isn’t illegal, you know.
But I don’t like our business mouthed around. Too many jealous people, if you know what I mean.”

“He told me some things…” Nora Jane looked at Sandy. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He picked up one of the canisters and took
out a joint and lit it and passed it to Maurice.

“We have dinner reservations in less than an hour,” Mirium said. “Let’s have some wine, then get going. I can’t stand to be
late and lose our table. Maurice, try that buzzer. See if you can get someone in here.”

“These are sick people you send places,” Nora Jane said. “That you need a driver for?”

“Oh, honey, they’re worse than sick. These people are at the end. I mean, the end. We’re the last chance they’ve got.”

“They don’t care what it costs,” Sandy said. “They pay in cash.”

“So what does it do for them?” Nora Jane said. “Does it make them well?”

“It makes them happy,” Maurice said.

“It makes them better than they were,” Mirium said. “If they have faith. It won’t work without faith. Faith makes the energy
start flowing. You see, honey, the real value of Laetrile is it gets the energy flowing. Right, Sandy?” She moved over beside
him and took the joint from between his fingers. “Like good sex. It keeps the pipes open, if you know what I mean.” She put
her hand on Sandy’s sleeves, caressing his sleeve.

“Do you have a powder room?” Nora Jane said. “A bathroom I mean.”

“There’s one in the foyer,” Mirium said. “Or you can go back to the bedroom.”

“The one in the foyer’s fine.” Nora Jane had started moving. She was up the steps from the sunken area. She was out of the
room and into the hall. She was to the foyer. The keys are in the ignition, she was thinking. I saw him leave them there.
And if they aren’t I’ll walk. But I am getting out of here. Then she was out the door and past the cupids and running along
the paving stones to the parking lot. The Lincoln was right where Sandy had parked it. She got in and turned the key and the
engine came on and she backed out and started driving. Down the steep rocky drive so fast she almost went over the side. She
slowed down and turned onto the ocean road. Slow down, she told herself. You could run over someone. They can’t do anything
to me. They can’t send the police after me. Not with all they have going on in there. All I have to do is drive this car.
I don’t have to hurry and I don’t have to worry about a single thing. And I don’t have to think about Sandy. Imagine him doing
it with that woman. Well, I should talk. I mean, I’ve been doing it with Freddy. But it isn’t the same thing. Well it isn’t.

She looked out toward the ocean, the Pacific Ocean lying dark green and wonderful in the evening sun. I’ll just think about
the whales, she decided. I’ll concentrate on whales. Tam says they hear us thinking. She says they hear everything we do.
Well, Chinese people are always saying things like that. I guess part of what they say is true. I mean they’re real old. They’ve
been around so long.

It was dark when Nora Jane got to Freddy’s house. The front door was wide open. He was in the hot tub with the stereo blaring
out country music. “Oh, I’m a good-hearted woman, in love with a good-timing man.” Waylon Jennings was filling the house with
dumb country ideas.

“I’m drunk as a deer,” Freddy called out when he saw her. “The one I love won’t admit she loves me. Therefore I am becoming
an alcoholic. One and one makes two. Cause and effect. Ask Nieman. He’ll tell you. He’s helping me. He’s right over there,
passed out on the sofa. In his green suit. Wake him up. Ask him if I’m an alcoholic or not. He’ll tell you.” Freddy picked
up a bottle of brandy from beside an art deco soap dish and waved it in the air. “Brandy. King of elixirs. The royal drink
of the royal heads of France, and of me. Frederick Slazenger Harwood, lover of the cruel Louisiana voodoo queen. Voodooooed.
I’ve been voodooooed. Vamped and rendered alcoholic.”

“Get out of there before you drown yourself. You shouldn’t be in there drunk. I think you’ve started living in that hot tub.”

“Not getting out until I shrivel. Ask Nieman. Go ahead, wake him up. Ask him. Going to shrivel up to a tree limb. Have myself
shipped to the Smithsonian. Man goes back to tree. I can see the headlines.”

“I stole a car. It’s in the driveway.”

“Stay me with flagons,” he called out. “Comfort me with apples, for I am sick with love. Nieman, get up. Nora Jane stole a
car. We have to turn her in. Why did you steal a car? I just gave you a car.” He pulled himself up on the edge of the hot
tub. “Why on earth would you steal a car?”

So, first there was the night she spent with Freddy, then there was the night she spent with Sandy, then there was the night
she stole the car. Then three weeks went by. Then five weeks went by and Nora Jane Whittington had not started menstruating
and she was losing weight and kept falling asleep in the afternoon and the smell of cigarettes or bacon frying was worse than
the smell of a chicken plucking plant. The egg had been hard at work.

A miracle, the sisters at the Academy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus would have said. Chemistry, Maurice would say. Energy,
Mirium Sallisaw would declare. This particular miraculous energetic piece of chemistry had split into two identical parts
and they were attached now to the lining of Nora Jane’s womb, side by side, the size of snow peas, sending out for what they
needed, water and pizza and sleep, rooms without smoke or bacon grease.

“Well, at least its name will start with an H,” Nora Jane said. She was talking to Tam Suyin, a Chinese mathematician’s wife
who was her best friend and confidante in the house on Arch Street where she lived. It was a wonderful old Victorian house
made of boards two feet wide. Lobelia and iris and Madonna lilies lined the sidewalk leading to the porch. Along the side
poppies as red as blood bloomed among daisies and snapdragons. Fourteen people lived in the twelve bedrooms, sharing the kitchen
and the living quarters.

Nora Jane had met Tam the night she moved in, in the middle of the night, after an earthquake. Tam and her husband Li had
taught Nora Jane many things she would never have heard of in Louisiana. In return Nora Jane was helping them with their English
grammar. Now, wherever they went in the world, the Suyins’ English would be colored by Nora Jane’s soft southern idioms.

“And it probably will have brown eyes,” she continued. “I mean, Sandy has blue eyes, or, I guess you could call them gray.
But Freddy and I have brown eyes. That’s two out of three. Oh, Tam, what am I going to do? Would you just tell me that?” Nora
Jane had just come back from the doctor. She walked across the room and lay down on the bed, her face between her hands.

“Start at the beginning. Tell story all over. Leave out romance. We see if we figure something out. Tell story again.”

“Okay. I know I started menstruating about ten days before I took the IUD out. I had to wait until I stopped bleeding. I used
to bleed like a stuck pig when I had that thing. That’s why I took it out. So then I made love to Freddy that night. Then
Sandy called me, or, no, I called him because I heard this Bob Dylan song. Anyway, I was glad to see him until I met these
people he’s been living with. This woman that gives drugs to her own kid. But first I made love to him and we cried a lot.
I mean, it was really good making love to him. So I think it must be Sandy’s. Don’t you? What do you think?”

Tam came across the room and sat down on the bed and began to rub Nora Jane’s back, moving her fingers down the vertebrae.
“We can make abortion with massage. Very easy. Not hurt body. Not cost anything. No one make you have this baby. You make
up your mind. I do it for you.”

“I couldn’t do that. I was raised a Catholic. It isn’t like being from China. Well, I don’t mind having it anyway. I thought
about it all the way home from the doctor’s. I mean, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My father’s dead and my mother’s
a drunk. So I don’t care much anyway. I’ll have someone kin to me. If it will be a girl. It’ll be all right if it’s a girl
and I can name her Lydia after my grandmother. She was my favorite person before she died. She had this swing on her porch.”
Nora Jane put her face deeper into the sheets, trying to feel sorry for herself. Tam’s hands moved to her shoulders, rubbing
and stroking, caressing and loving. Nora Jane turned her head to the side. A breeze was blowing in the window. The curtains
were billowing like sails. Far out at sea she imagined a whale cub turning over inside its mother. “It will be all right if
it’s a girl and I can name it Lydia for my grandmother.”