the thing and took every chance to fondle its curves so she seemed not to be central to us and THE DEED.
Well, they got their man and bullied him away to the roof job and the rest of us all let our breath out simultaneously because THE DEED was still perfectly on course.
Janet Weymouth, of old money, enounces her words in the accent of old money. Married to more money, she is a patron for all, assuring them of their heart’s content, and so she would be as visible as the full moon in the black night of this room, if it were night.
Not quite sixty-five, slimly tall and straight, yes, a book would balance on her head. Always speaking hushed, taking you by the wrist. Her eyes float toward you as a destination on a vast plain when you are speeding toward it as a helpless passenger. So circumscribing those blue eyes, the eyes of a kindly spider, one who quickly wraps you in favor.
Short hair. Dark blond, not a flicker of gray. Gray has been banished. Breath neither mist nor cloud, more like peppy child-ghosts. And there is a fragrance from her body you’d never sniff on anyone else. Something priceless. Like tall heated grasses and wild roses by the cold sea. Oh, yes, of course, she lives by the sea. Or is she of the sea? Her occupation of any sort of space lacks foot scuffs, heavy rustlings, thumps, and clomps.
And see for this occasion today she is wearing a dress of Mother Earth blue. She has many other blues, such as sugar blue, clarion blue, tropical blue, blue of realization, temple blue, blue of frolic, blue of beneficence, blue with the merest flutter of silver, blue of contrition, trick-the-eye green-blue, blue of the last waltz and the peacock and the dragonfly and permafrost and blue moons and bluebells, whole blue, horizon blue, ever-blue, steep blue, Eden blue, jay blue, breezy blue and hurtling blue and blue sprite. And all of those blues match her eyes perfectly!!
Yes, now Mother Earth blue for Janet Weymouth who is mother of this day. Although she is not one of the organizers. She just appeared at one of the final planning meetings and all who were present bowed down.
So what is this day about?
Republican governors have come to Maine for a huddle about block grants and thus more than thirty governors’ wives are being entertained by “the committee,” which includes, among others, members of the Maine Historical Society and Maine Arts Commission, the Chamber of Commerce (of course), and some significant representatives of education, media, and Maine’s Republican Party (of course).
When Janet Weymouth had warmly suggested to the committee that her friend be invited to speak to these thirty-two governors’ wives, she said only: “My friend is the many. He is the tableau vivant of all hope and possibility.” And yet there was even more mystery in her lack of additional remarks on the speaker’s qualifications. But her wishes being always their gladly obeyed commands, they consented.
So much is at stake for some of them here, thus there are a few cramps of unease behind some of the perfectly constructed smiles.
A bus carries the governors’ wives from their hotel to this reclusive site, the Dumond House, a stone mansion, sometimes open to the public, a museum by the sea, high on a rocky point, a lot of floor-to-ceiling small-paned windows and stone paths winding through the gardens of tiny sylphlike flowers.
Janet Weymouth’s own home is less than a mile from here, similarly situated on rock and pulverized sand and bobbing, almost giggling, with wee late-summer flowers.
A solid step is placed beneath the open door of the bus. Security men in black funereal suits swarm. Down step the wives, high heels or nearly high heels on every little or large pair of feet. They are dressed in tans, grays, summer pastels, one daring red. Although their faces are varied, heart-shaped, round, long and bony, middle-aged and young, dark and light, and their souls like all souls are gaseous, free, and frisky, they deploy identical gestures and smile the same smile, perfectionists of professionalism, prisoners of their own ascendancy.
Now they are herded preciously into the main parlor and settled in with their coffees and teas and gay hors d’oeuvres. And there is a lot of small talk. Profoundly small.
Eventually, someone whispers of the arrival of the speaker. But who is the speaker? The name has been omitted from the program.
Now being ushered in by hosts is a rangy group of people which is NOTICED by everyone here. Mostly kids, some three-if-they-are-a-day having to be pulled along by their chubby hands by women and adolescents, and lots of kids of the wiggly five to eleven ages marching along with purpose.
Most of the kids carry voluminous satchels and they are a confusion of races, pink, golden, and brown like a politically correct advertisement for RVs or unlimited long-distance telephone service.
Look closer, see that long-legged golden-brown child covertly studying the seated governors’ wives, her eyes behind two pink heart-shaped lenses with white plastic frames. Her dazzling yellow sundress is too short, the heels of her clogs are too high as she weaves and wags along with one hand spread at her hip. You’d be reminded of a fashion model on the runway or an MTV star but she couldn’t be more than seven.
Another youngster, this one teen-sized though it’s hard to determine the sex with such thin patchy hair, a lot of scalp, the face and arms and hands mottled with sores. Well, he seems to be a boy. Something about his ambling gait. Bushy pants have stylish tucks. The shirt an old-timey French workingman’s smock in a coarse brown fabric.
But even more unfortunate is one of the adolescent girls whose greenishly-gold eyes have an unnatural feline distance between them. She is nearly six feet tall. She wears a handsome emerald green dress. Her hair is long tortuous crayon-orange curls and ripples. She hefts three pregnant-looking satchels. On her feet are tall lace-up logging boots and tall thick brown socks.¶¶
Now here comes another almost six-foot gal, large-framed, late twenties (thereabouts), carrying a threeyearold (thereabouts), both woman and child having fountainlike topknots of dark hair, the woman’s streaked with brassy blond-orange. Eyebrows shapely, eyes too glittery, obviously contacts. But the dress! A black T-shirt material and no bra. Breasts like two heads. Nipples like two noses, though not as big as her actual nose, which is significant. And what are those things dangling from her ears? Spray-painted acorns. Only slightly less tasteless than bottle caps.***
The child she totes stares with suspicion at the garage-door-sized stone fireplace with decorative birch “logs” stacked in its center.
Several teen girls in long skirts of the same coarse brown fabric as the afflicted boy’s shirt cluster around the redhead, swinging more fat satchels. Embroidered kerchiefs keep their hair back. No jewelry. All wear moccasins and socks.
Something about this group. Almost biblical. Like thieves and lepers and whores and shepherdesses. Fascinating.
Now along comes a short, rotund woman, her dress professorial, gray, and tasteful. Like many of the tykes, she has the dark Passamaquoddy eyes (the governors’ wives would say “indigenous”), encircled in the woman’s case by the steel-rimmed lenses of old-timey spectacles. Her hair, slightly graying, is in a braided bun. She wears a plain silver wedding band. Her taking account of the dozens of VIP faces does not waver. To her they might be nothing but print on the pages of a history too far back to hurt anyone now . . . maybe the Cleopatra years. Or the Stonehenge days. She herself is about fifty, her eyes, yes, as black as the future into which this castle-weighty event is already wobbling on into eventual myth.†††
Shuffling past the security men in black are more tykes laden with lumpy satchels. More
