Read Online Guests on Earth by Lee Smith - Free Book Online Page B

to each other, they have worn out all their topics, they are too mean to talk, just staring out hatefully at the rest of us. And that young man eating alone is so handsome, handsome beyond belief, maybe he is a movie star, though obviously he is heartbroken at the present time, perhaps because he has fallen in love with someone unsuitable, and knows he can never, ever have her . . . or maybe she has a wasting disease, or maybe she is crazy, maybe she is over at Highland Hospital right now, taking a rest cure . . . I ate my club sandwich as slowly as possible, savoring every bite, while Mrs. Hodges and her daughter talked on and on. The other diners conversed in hushed tones and the silverware shone and the glasses tinkled all around us and the waiters glided back and forth gracefully through the beautiful room like skaters until suddenly I realized that in fact I was staring straight at Mrs. Fitzgerald, and that man with her—that very man!—must be the famous Mr. Fitzgerald, the author, her husband. By then, I had heard all about him.
    The Fitzgeralds sat together on a banquette next to a giant fern in a giant planter, both of their backs against the wall, looking out across their table at the vast dining room before them, and did not speak.
    I touched Mrs. Hodges’s sleeve. When she did not respond, I grabbed it. “Isn’t that . . . ?” I started to ask, looking over at them.
    “Hush now, Evalina, why yes it is, don’t stare. There’s a good girl.”
    But I could not take my eyes off them for they seemed so odd, so unlike the others there in that lively, lovely company. He was much smaller than I had expected, and very pale, though he was undeniably good-looking, with sharp, fine features and glittering green eyes. She wore her stoic, secretive Cherokee face, and toyed with her food. He was drinking a beer directly from the bottle. While I watched, the waiter brought him another, taking that bottle away.
    “Thirty a day, they say!” Moira leaned closer. “Thirty bottles a day, and that’s when he’s on the wagon, off the gin! Oh, it’s sad, sad. Such a talent, such a loss.”
    “They look so unhappy,” I said inadvertently.
    “I should imagine!” Mrs. Hodges snorted. “They’ve worn it all out, I daresay. What a life they’ve led! Dancing all night and jumping into fountains and drinking like fish all the while, mind you. Living in hotels and receiving guests in the bath. Frankly I don’t know what Himself is thinking, imagining that she should ever get well again, and make a proper wife! Who would want her, after all this?”
    “Well, who would want him?” Moira asked. “Look at him. He’s up all night, can’t sleep, he’s got the insomnia, you know. Sick as a dog, never eats a thing but a bit of rice or potatoes and gravy, no wonder, imagine the shape his stomach is in! And that room, Lord, Lord. A pigsty!”
    “But I heard he has a lady friend . . .” Mrs. Hodges scooted nearer her daughter.
    “Oh he does, he does. She’s real nice, a young married woman from Memphis that comes up here by herself, rich as Croesus. She’s mad for him, you can tell. God knows what she thinks she’s doing. It will end in a disaster, of course. But that’s not all. Why, he’s even had fancy ladies up to his room, right here in the Inn, I am not kidding you, Mum”—in answer to her look of disbelief. “You just ask Ruthie, if you don’t believe me. Why, Ruthie’s passed them in the stairwell, close as you and me! And there’s one in particular that’s been up there visiting numerous times. You know that girl down at the Biltmore, the one that gets so dolled up and tells the fortunes, Lottie Stephens her name is, well they say she’s a mulatto . . .”
    The red heads merged—the one dulled by grey, the other a riot of wild curls—as the conversation continued in whispers now, punctuated by Mrs. Hodges’s occasional “Why you don’t say!” or “Blessed saints in heaven preserve