Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

Maggie lit her own and switched couches, sitting down beside her daughter.

“I live on Tiverton, one floor down from your godfather.”

Didi inhaled deeply, and they could almost see the smoke hit her bloodstream and begin mixing with the other poisons. She gave a little shudder. “You three really stick together, don’t you?” she said with a massive exhale. “Always have—the Mull musketeers. All for one, and one for all. Ever make room for anyone else in your neat little group?”

“The answer is, yes,” said Lizzie, seeing her sister stiffen and cutting in before she could reply. “You want to join, there’s plenty of room.”

“Sorry, it’s a little late.”

“You could come stay with Joe and me for a while,” said Lizzie.

Didi stared fixedly at her aunt. “Aunt Liz,” she said, taking another huge swallow of smoke and hesitating until her lungs fully injected the nicotine into her bloodstream, “do you happen to know how much your son and I hate each other and always have?”

“Robby’s gone.”

“Why all this venom?” said Maggie suddenly. “Where does it come from?”

Wherever it came from they saw it in her eyes, dark, anxious, lost, distrust mixed with envy and regret. Was there a way out of this, the eyes asked? No, too late, a voice replied. Down deep, maybe, there was a way out, but to get there you had to strip away layers of resentment and remorse and hostility and other stuff, and no one could dig that deep. It couldn’t be erased anyway, etched into hippocampus as into granite. The sisters had come to help, and that made it worse. Pity mixed with solicitude makes a sour brew.

Her face still red, she turned to face her mother. “My shrink says everything I do is in reaction to you. My vertigo comes as a reaction to your flying. My fear comes from your fearlessness. He says I have built up antibodies to protect myself against you. That letting you back into my life could kill me.”

Maggie’s cigarette tasted foul, and when Didi put hers out on the tile floor, crushing the butt with the sole of her bare foot, Maggie put hers out as well, grinding down harder than she meant to do. Give the maid some work. She was angry; whatever guilt she’d felt over her daughter’s disappearance exorcised under the deluge of accusations. We become what we choose. We alone are responsible.

“Had we known this was how things would turn out, we’d never have sent you to Granny’s. We thought it was the right thing. Obviously, we were wrong.”

“You said, we, but it was you. You alone.” From behind the house somewhere they heard splashing and shouting.

“Not exactly,” said Maggie. “Anyway, isn’t it what you wanted?”

“What I wanted? How old was I, eight? Why wouldn’t I want to go to Granny’s when I never saw either parent and spent all my time in that awful public school and with that witchlike old woman with her hairnet and cigarettes and she smelled, smelled—did you ever get a whiff of Mrs. Crotch? I hated her. Of course, I went to Granny’s.”

“She asks for you,” said Lizzie.

“Oh, nice, Aunt Lizzie. A little guilt trip? Well maybe I’ll go see her. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just telephone.”

“She can’t talk on the telephone anymore.”

“That’s my fault, too, isn’t it?”

Lizzie was staggered. Was it something about these hills? The thin air, maybe? She could not come up here without thinking of the Manson murderers, of those girls running around stabbing to death people they didn’t even know, butchering poor Sharon Tate who pleaded to let her unborn baby live, zombies stalking the night with their knives, ghoulishly drenching themselves in blood on Manson’s orders. She had covered every major story in this city for three decades, yet nothing came close to Manson. Every other calamity lent itself to some sort of explanation. Manson alone was inexplicable horror, the sort of thing we thrill to in movies because it is so obviously bogus. Looking into the dead eyes of her niece, she understood the Manson girls. Killing ourselves or killing others: programed to a hatred of life, life of hatred.

She had to try. “Why are you trying to be so tough, Didi, tough and mean? Forget what your shrink tells you. Granny wants to see you, and you want to see her. We wouldn’t mind seeing more of you either. Why not drive down? I’ll take you myself if you don’t mind my Ford.”

“What, tear yourself away from the Times?”

“I’ve left the Times.”

“God, all this family news I’m missing! No more work, no more prizes. Just you and Uncle Joe in Brentwood.”

“We have the foundation. Do you know about the foundation? I’d love to show you around sometime.”

Maggie wasn’t going to interfere. If Lizzie thought she could break through impregnable barriers of disgust and self-loathing, let her try.

“Do-gooders, that’s what you are. That’s what Archie calls you: do-gooders. Where would the world be without the Mulls?”

“Archie?” said Lizzie.

“Archie Zug, the man in whose house you are sitting. Archie is my director, among other things. Vern is my counselor, also among other things.” She was holding nothing back.

“Archie is Wonderworld, isn’t he?” said Lizzie.

“That’s Trevor. Archie works with Trevor. They’re going to build their own studio just as soon as they find the land.”

“Tell me, Didi,” said Lizzie, fighting against an instinct that wanted to bolt from this noxious presence and these murderous hills, “what’s wrong with doing good? Isn’t that what life is all about? Isn’t that everyone’s duty.”

“Duty? God, wait until I tell Vern that one! My only duty is to myself. Fortunately, Granny gave me some money to do it with—the only Mull who ever gave me anything. I’m in her will, you know. The only one!”

“And what will you do with all this money?”

“Why,spend it, of course, just like Granny taught me.”

They were quiet most of the way down. Too many curves, too many cliffs, too many thoughts. Maggie