Sweet and Deadly Read online

  “How was your date with Sphinx?” the fraternity brother had asked idly.

  “Like dating Snow White. You never know if she’s going to say anything, or if she does, what it’s going to be; and you feel like she might have the Seven Dwarves in her pocket.”

  He had never asked her out again; and Catherine had been too unnerved and hurt to accept a date for a long time after that.

  But I’m not scared now, she realized as she dashed into the bathroom (wouldn’t do to have to go at the levee).

  She wondered, as she flushed the toilet, if Randall was so tempting because she had been so lonely for so long; because Leona’s solitary life and death had forced her to wonder if she would be alone forever.

  “I don’t care,” she said out loud, zipping up her blue jeans.

  She decided, peering in the mirror again, that she looked positively animated. The sun yesterday had taken care of her need for color. “Though I wish,” she muttered, “it had skipped my nose in the process.”

  What the hell, she thought, stuffing her keys in one pocket and her cigarette case in the other. What the hell.

  She had not been prepared to be so relaxed with him. She had heard talk of Randall all her life: her mother had been fond of his mother, though Angel Gerrard was considerably older. The two women, sitting companionably in the kitchen over coffee, had discussed their children; and Catherine, in and out, had heard (without caring a great deal, since he was so much older) of Randall’s progress through college, graduate school, and employment with a congressman who was a Gerrard family friend.

  Since Catherine had gotten a job at the Gazette, Randall had scarcely become more real. His presence had seemed so familiar, in a shadowy way, that she had never looked squarely at him. And during her first weeks of work, Catherine had been functioning automatically, in a state of shock. When her feeling had slowly returned, tingling as if her whole body had been asleep, she had come to know her coworkers bit by bit, but Randall had remained on the outer fringes. He was in and out of the office, selling advertising space, hiring delivery men, supervising the unloading of the enormous rolls of paper for the press: always busy. He was alert to the contents of his paper, writing stories himself when Tom and Catherine had too much on their hands. And always passing through.

  He must be as used to hearing my name as I am to hearing his, Catherine thought, as they drove out of town in easy silence. This third-hand familiarity eliminated the need to exchange information immediately, as men and women usually did. Catherine became almost drowsy with comfort.

  They were coming to the levee. The graveled road, which had been aiming through the seemingly endless level terrain of the fields, mounted to the levee in a sharp swoop.

  She leaned forward a little, reliving the excitement she had felt at this abrupt climb when she was little and riding with her grandfather in his pickup. It had been as thrilling as a roller coaster.

  Randall looked over at her and smiled.

  A last lurch and they were on top of the levee. The graveled road on the top was barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. On the river side, the green grass slope was scattered with cattle. It ran down to the trees that marked the edge of the marshy land bordering the river, though in places the slope rose again to modest bluffs that overlooked the water.

  Some roads led down to fishing camps. Randall bypassed them, to Catherine’s relief. The fishing camps were tawdry and depressing, with their ramshackle weekend cabins and litter of beer bottles.

  “Where are we going, Randall?” she asked shyly.

  “To the party bluff.”

  She nodded. That was the right place to go today.

  “I haven’t been out there since I was in high school,” she said. “I hear they’ve put garbage cans out there, picnic tables. And some gravel to park on.”

  “Yes,” he said. “When I was in high school, someone got stuck out there every spring. We would all be drunk as lords, scrambling around in the mud, trying to find wood to put under the tires. Our parents’ cars, of course. Having to drive back into town in someone else’s car, trying to get Danny at the Shell station to take his tow truck out there without phoning our folks.”

  “Pooling your money to pay him,” Catherine murmured, nodding.

  “Right,” Randall laughed, his memories chiming with hers.

  They took the turnoff to the bluff. The road plunged down at what seemed an impossible angle. Catherine had a moment to think “roller coaster,” and they charged down.

  And down. The road, which disintegrated into a graveled track, began winding narrowly through choking undergrowth. The track had been built up to avoid flooding, but after any considerable rain, parts of it were under water. Since the weather had been so dry for so long, they didn’t have to worry about that today. Catherine could see the roots of the trees sticking up like bare bones. Branches brushed the car. The road was roofed with interlocking greenery. Inside the car it was cool and dim.

  Randall drove very slowly. The gravel had petered out, leaving only dirt, heaved and holed by the rain and then baked hard. The car rocked and shimmied.

  After some twists, they began to climb again. The trees thinned, the driving was easier.

  Catherine saw the shimmer of the sun on the water.

  The bluff had been cleared of trees, leaving a large open area. There was a graveled turnaround, which Randall circled so that the car pointed back down the track. A couple of oil drums had been cleaned and placed in the clearing to hold garbage, and they showed evidence of heavy use.

  “Much better,” Catherine said approvingly.

  She and Randall didn’t speak again until they had settled on the edge of the bluff. Below them the bank fell away gently down to the lapping water. The bank was concrete, old and broken in places, allowing the relentless Mississippi weeds to push their heads through the cracks. There was river litter, not human litter, scattered on the concrete—bits of wood and weed.

  Catherine sighed. The bank of Arkansas was clear but tiny across the river.

  She was content.

  This was not like being with any other man. She couldn’t explain to herself how someone so distant and so taken for granted could have switched positions so easily and naturally. She didn’t want to explain, or worry, or wonder; or try to picture how he saw her. She was, for once, quite unselfconscious.

  The swift and treacherous current swept a large branch downriver toward New Orleans. They watched it pass. The river spawned big sweeping thoughts that were best shared silently.

  “Maybe a barge will go by,” Catherine said, after a time.

  When she had been in her teens, a group of them would stand on the bluff and shout to the bargemen, their voices carrying across the river. The bargemen would sometimes sound the deep barge horn in reply.

  “It’s better at night,” Randall observed after a peaceful interval.

  She remembered. The lights, shining over the dark water until the barge was out of sight around the bend in the river.

  “We’ll stay until one comes,” he said.

  He inched back on his rear until he was behind Catherine, his legs on either side of her. His thick fingers began to work gently in her hair, separating strands, combing them through. Catherine was catlike in her pleasure, her eyes half closed, delight running down her spine.

  “It’s like a bowl, the rim of a bowl,” she murmured. His fingers brushed her scalp and she shivered. “No beginning, no end. The river goes on and on. And kids come out to watch it in the night.”

  “And barges come down with lights on.”

  “The cotton grows,” she said, “and they harvest it and plant more.”

  “And there are the same roles to be taken in the town,” he said. “Different people assume them. But they all get taken and worked, over and over—mayor, town drunk, planter. Newspaper editor.”

  “Dogs get hit by cars,” she said, her voice sharpening, losing its drowsy dreamy pitch.

  “And th
ere are other dogs,” Randall said quietly. His hands rested in her hair, still, waiting.

  “Other dogs,” she agreed after a moment, and his hands began moving.

  She had almost lost their moment when she once again saw a large dun-colored dog lying by the side of a dusty road. But the continuity of the river, mirroring the continuity of their town, washed away that picture in its current.

  They moved into the shade when Catherine’s skin began to prickle. Randall lay under a dilapidated picnic table, reckless of ants and other interested insects. Catherine lay on her stomach on top of the table, peering down at him. She was not afraid of ants, not today, but she wanted to see his face.

  “What did you do in Washington?” she asked lazily.

  “I gave out the senator’s press releases. I told people things. I leaked information on request.” He laughed.

  “Did you want to come back?”

  “Not at first. I had forgotten how it was. I was proud I was a citizen of the bigger world.”

  “And later?”

  “Well,” he said more slowly, “I didn’t resent the family-legacy thing after a while. Once I got back into living in Lowfield, it all seemed right and natural.”

  “Do you miss Washington, and being in the center of things? A citizen of the bigger world?”

  He thought. Catherine watched the ripple of his muscles as he put his arms behind his head.

  “When I’ve been in Lowfield for a while,” he answered slowly, “it seems like the center of things.”

  “Can you see without your glasses?” Catherine asked solemnly.

  “No,” said Randall and smiled. He took them off and blinked at her blindly. “Do you get tired of writing up weddings?”

  “They’re all the same: only the names have been changed,” she said. “I like it mostly. It needs to be done, and it keeps me busy. It makes people happy…Did you want to hire me?”

  “I knew you could do it,” Randall said. “I just wondered why you wanted to. Then I talked to my mother, who still has half-interest in the paper. She was absolutely sure that you were exactly what the Gazette needed. I think she had designs on you.”

  Catherine raised her eyebrows.

  “She was tired of my catting off to Memphis bars.”

  “Oh.” Catherine blinked.

  “Time coasted by, and I was busy and you were quiet and did your work and went home.”

  Catherine said, “Um.”

  “And gradually, as I began to remember the reason I thought she wanted you at the paper, I began to look at you.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “I know, and I was mad as hell. I said, ‘Randall, you’re twelve years older than this girl, and you prance by her desk a dozen times a day, and she doesn’t look up. When you talk to her, she just nods and goes back to work.’” He opened his eyes to cock a look at Catherine. She kept her face still. “‘And she looks at you blankly,’” he said.

  Catherine laughed.

  “I practically doubled my running time in the evening and added five pounds to my weights.”

  She reached down to touch his shoulder appreciatively.

  “And I was scared to ask you out, because you were an employee, and how would you feel you could refuse? I didn’t know how you’d react.”

  “You came when I was in trouble,” she said. “I see you now.”

  “This isn’t how things usually go,” he said.

  “I know.”

  They saw their barge.

  It swept around the bend in the river, majestic in the night. Its lights shone across the water.

  Randall shouted, and the answering sound of the horn drifted, melancholy and beautiful, over the dark moving river.

  “I have gumbo,” Catherine said, on their way back into town.

  “It was contributed by Mrs. Perkins; she’s from Louisiana, and I’m sure she’s an excellent gumbo cook.”

  “Is that an offer?”

  “Yes,” she said, shy again since they had left the levee.

  “I’m hungry.”

  The gumbo was excellent.

  “Shall I stay?” he asked.

  The weight of the next day descended prematurely. They would become employer and employee again. Then she couldn’t stand herself for letting the thought cross her mind.

  She was tempted to say yes, to get all the good out of this day she could, fearing it might not last, might never happen again. She had not trusted tomorrow for a long time.

  She gambled.

  “No, let’s wait,” she said.

  8

  A FTER THE SHOCK, fear, and joy of the weekend, Monday began badly. Catherine wanted to wear something she had never worn to the office before, in Randall’s honor. But her closet held only the unexciting shirtwaists she had worn as a freshman in college, when girls still wore dresses to class. She had worn them all scores of times.

  If Randall and I go out this weekend, I’ll have to go to Memphis one evening this week and buy something to wear, she thought cautiously. I’m damned if I’ll wear one of these.

  She pulled on her least-faded dress, in a snit of anger at herself.

  “Morning,” she said curtly to Leila Masham as she entered the Gazette’s front door, which faced onto the town square. Her temper was not improved by the sight of long-legged Leila in a brand-new summer dress that bared Leila’s golden shoulders. The girl flagged her down with an urgent wave, so Catherine had to stop instead of marching through the reporters’ room.

  Catherine expected inquiries about the weekend’s big incident, but single-minded Leila whispered theatrically, “Tom came in early this morning!” The girl’s brown eyes were open wide at this unprecedented beginning to a Monday.

  “He didn’t have to drive down from Memphis,” Catherine whispered back, reminded of Leila’s infatuation in time to stop herself from saying, “So what?”

  “Was she down here?”

  “She” must be Tom’s fiancée.

  Leila would have to find out sooner or later.

  “They broke up,” Catherine said expressionlessly.

  She had given Leila the keys to heaven.

  “Ooh,” Leila said, as if she had been hit on the back.

  Catherine shook her head as she crossed the reporters’ room to her desk. Tom was hard at work already, typing furiously, taking swift sideways glances at the notes by his typewriter. He acknowledged her with a look and a nod that said he didn’t want to be interrupted, and hunched back over the keys. His long thin fingers flew.

  “Such activity on a Monday,” Catherine muttered, whipping the plastic cover from her own typewriter. Then she realized that Tom was writing what would be the lead story, about Leona’s murder. She paused with her hands in her lap, the cover clutched half-folded between her fingers.

  I have a lot to do, and this can’t get in the way, she told herself sternly. She stuffed the cover into its accustomed drawer with a resolute air, and pulled out a sheaf of papers from her Pending basket. As she flipped through them, she kept an ear cocked for Randall’s voice.

  Gradually, as she became caught up in her work, she forgot to listen. When that dawned on her, she thought, All to the good.

  She was studying the layout of her society page—which she briefly sketched out as it filled up—when she realized with a jolt that Randall was standing at the other side of the desk.

  I’m as bad as Leila, she thought ruefully.

  “Movie in Memphis Friday night?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Won’t you smile, Sphinx?”

  She smiled.

  As he walked through Leila’s room into his office, she typed cheerfully, “The mother of the bride wore beige silk…”

  Catherine polished off two weddings with dispatch. She was glad she didn’t have to actually attend the ceremonies. She usually dropped by the bride’s house and extended her regrets, leaving a form to fill out that made writing the stories practically automatic.

 
Bridesmaids’ names and places of residence, descriptions of everyone’s dress, and details of the decorations at the short Southern reception. Groom’s employment, bride’s employment (this last recently instituted). Honeymoon itinerary.

  Summer and Christmas were the wedding seasons. May was parties for graduates. Obituaries and children’s birthday parties, anniversary celebrations and dinner parties, trips and out-of-town guests filled up the rest of the year. All of these appeared on Catherine’s society page except the obituaries, which were scattered through the paper as fillers. Catherine wrote those as well—unless the death was unusual in some way, in which case Tom picked it up.

  Leila buzzed Catherine’s extension more often than any other. At the little paper, Monday and Tuesday were the busiest days, the two days before the paper came out, when people realized they had to contact her before the weekly noon deadlines. The Gazette was printed on Wednesday morning, distributed Wednesday afternoon.

  This Monday was no exception. Catherine worked steadily through the morning, taking notes from callers and typing them up as soon as possible.

  By eleven, her desk was an impossible clutter. It was time to review what she had done and what she had left to do. Four weddings. One for this Wednesday’s paper, three for the next issue. She carefully dated them. She had taken two more weddings back to the typesetter the previous Friday. She checked: yes, the accompanying pictures were attached to her new copy.

  She put the copy in a basket and sorted through the other sheets of flimsy yellow paper. A little social note about the Drummonds’ progress in Europe: that should please the old couple when they returned and read the back issues. A bridal shower. A baby shower. And two children’s birthday parties. Catherine wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  The last society editor had started this practice, and it was a sure-fire paper seller, but Catherine had always felt it horribly cutesy to write up infants’ birthday parties. The stories were invariably accompanied by amateurish pictures taken by doting grandparents: pictures featuring babies sitting more or less upright in highchairs, often with party hats fixed tipsily to their heads. Catherine had long wanted to discontinue this feature, but in view of the papers it sold (every child having multiple relations who were sure to want a copy or two), she had never discussed it with Randall. The Gazette needed all the revenue it could get.