Lancelot

mattress to sit on. “Get me out of this damn thing.” I swear I think she almost said git but not really: she was halfway between git and get, just as she was halfway between Odessa, Texas, and New Orleans.
    Damned if the hoop skirt didn’t work like chaps! It hooked on behind and came right off and meanwhile she was undoing her jacketlike top and so she stepped forth in pantaloons and bodice—I guess it was a bodice—all run with violet and green dye like a harlequin. I remember wondering at the time: Was it that she looked so good in pantaloons or would any woman look that much better in pantaloons? And also wondering: What got into our ancestors later that, with such a lovely curve and depth of thigh and ass, they felt obliged not to conceal but burlesque both, hang bustle behind and hoops outside? Was it some unfathomable women’s folly or a bad joke played on them by men?
    She sat, muddy feet touching, knees apart, arms straight out across them, looking up at the ceiling through her eyebrows.
    â€œThis was for pigeons?”
    â€œUpstairs. There are still a few. Listen.” Down the iron staircase came the chuckle-coo but it began to rain hard again and we couldn’t hear anything.
    I opened the briefcase between us and took out the fifth of Wild Turkey 86 proof, as mild as spring sunshine. Margot clapped her hands again and laughed out loud, the first time I ever heard the shouting, hooting laugh she laughed when she was really tickled. “What in the world—!” she addressed the unseen pigeons above us. “Did you plan this?”
    â€œNo, I can’t leave it in the office, the help gets into it.”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s—! My God, what luck. What great good luck. Oh, Scott—” Or something to that effect, I don’t quite remember. What I do remember was that in her two or three exclamations my ear caught overtones that overlay her original out-from-Odessa holler (gollee?): a bit of her voice teacher here, a bit of New Orleans there (they were saying Oh Scott that year), a bit of Winston Churchill (great good luck), a bit of Edward VII (at long last). Or was it Ronnie Colman? I had not yet heard her cut loose and swear like an oilfield roughneck.
    I took off coat and tie. I smelled of a day’s work in an unair-conditioned law office (Christ, I still hate air conditioning. I’d rather sweat and stink and drink ice water. That’s one reason I like it here in jail). She smelled of wet crinoline and something else, a musky nose-tickling smell.
    I must have asked her what her perfume was because I remember her saying orris root and laughing again: Miss What’s-Her-Name, grande dame and ramrod of the Azalea Festival, wanted everything authentic.
    â€œI think I’ll have a drink.”
    â€œFrom the bottle?”
    â€œYes. If you like I’ll get you some ice water.”
    When I finished, she upped the bottle, looking around all the while. She swallowed, bright-eyed. “Do you do this every day?”
    â€œI usually take a bath first, then sit on the gallery and Elgin brings me some ice water.”
    â€œWell, this is nice too.”
    We drank again in silence. It was raining hard and we couldn’t hear the pigeons. The tour buses were turning around, cutting up the lawn, sliding in the mud, their transmissions whining.
    â€œDo you have to go back with them?”
    â€œI’d as soon stay. Do you live here alone?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’re not married?”
    â€œNo. I was. My wife’s dead. I have a son and daughter, but they’re off at school.”
    â€œI thought Mr. and Mrs. Lamar were husband and wife.”
    â€œNo, son and mother. But my mother died last year.”
    â€œAnd you’re here alone?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAll by yourself?”
    â€œExcept for my son and daughter, but they’re seldom here.”
    â€œI’d be here all the time!” she cried, looking around.
    â€œI am.”
    â€œI see,” she said not listening, but looking, not missing a trick. She did see, she never stopped seeing. “What a lovely studio apartment this would make. And the little iron spiral staircase. Priceless! Do you know what this would rent for in New Orleans?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œTwo fifty at least.”
    â€œI could use it.”
    â€œYou mean you don’t do all this”—she nodded toward the buses, now moving out