Slide - Kyle Beachy [56]
“And now, which one are you?”
“Potter Mays,” I said. “We've met before.”
“That might could be, Potter Mays. You the one who just finished school?”
“They gave me a rolled-up piece of paper and everything.”
“Well well. That makes you how old?”
“Twenty-four. I took two years off halfway through school so I could travel around. Just you know. Be.”
She dropped her glasses down her nose. I stood near her feet. She appraised, then smiled, showing an unnaturally bright set of perfect teeth.
“Bullshit you did. You're no more twenty-four than I am sober.”
Deanna was a tall woman with long legs stretched and crossed at the ankle. I wanted to age her in the early region of forties, but with second wives it was sometimes hard to know. She'd been John Hurst's secretary for six years when he told Stuart's mother they were no longer husband and wife. Twenty-some-odd years of marriage, an unspeakable betrayal. So there was a villainous sheen to the woman, a covering of something like dust from the marital demolition she was so central to. This combined well with the boastful air she conveyed. Two years ago I'd reacted to the news of the divorce with a mixture of undefined awe and reluctant envy. Allegiances shattered, commandments broken—it was a scandal compelling on several levels. But that they'd gone so far as to marry somehow saddened and thickened the farce. I considered asking how many words she could type per minute.
“He's not here, I take it.”
“Him and that country girl drove off an hour ago. Can't say where they went. But if you're planning on staying I'm going to insist you make me a drink. Gin, splash of tonic, and about five ice cubes.”
I went inside and pulled a plastic cup from the cupboard. What was it about second wives? X years his junior. X years younger than wife the first. Without these bases of comparison they would float agelessly among us. Maybe it was the adjective alone, second. All this word implied. The same way ours was a college romance, encapsulated within a very small and jagged-edged universe. Outside of that universe we were without adjective, floating in the ether. Gin and tonic happened to be Audrey's drink of choice. It was also Carmel's. In fact it was Carmel's drink first, decried with rigid authority. Boop bop gin. Beep blip tonic. I stirred the drink and walked back outside.
“There's a doll. Damn if it isn't hotter than all hell.”
I saw the slightly exhausted sag of her upper arms, the prominence of veins on legs bent and pinched at the knee, the patient weariness in the corners of her mouth. Gravity. But still she lacked the markings of a serious caregiver. Stuart's real mother was a small and gentle woman, the sort of mother who's made ecstatic each time one of her children surpasses her in height. Teaching her family to share and listen and care for those with fewer resources, which for the Hursts was everyone; her work was to offset the various corruptions embedded within the world of limitless capital.
I asked if I would offend her with a personal question, and she said, “Oh please.”
“Why didn't you ever have children of your own?”
“A certain mechanic I loved once told me I lacked the shocks and struts to be a good parent. No, I have never been keen on children. How about you. Kids?”
“Just myself.”
She took a long sip, then swirled the ice with a finger. I asked what she thought of Marianne and she licked the finger.
“Where in the hell is your drink?”
“Stuart believes she's a genius,” I said.
“Oh, he does, does he. Well, she might be. Though I wonder if he's thinking of the right kind of genius. Got a tendency to miss things from time to time. Misinterpret. There ever was a boy who got wrapped up in his own legend, it's our Stewey Of course I never said that. Who am I to judge the prince of this land.”
“I'm not sure I know what you mean.”
“Sit down, Potter Mays. You're in my sun. That's better. What I mean is, Stuart Hurst, Esquire, fancies himself the center of a very specific world. Am