The Second Coming

was coming or going? Ah, suddenly he saw what Kitty meant. She meant now they were a distinguished couple, he with his silvery temples, she with her lithe branny brown arms and gold swatch of hair.
    Kitty drew closer. “Stop giving me that Scorp look. It takes one to know one you know.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou haven’t forgotten that we are both Scorps?”
    â€œScorps?”
    â€œScorpios.” She jostled him. “Don’t hand me that.” Perhaps he had not remembered everything. “Did you think I had forgotten your birthday? It’s next month, the day after mine, remember? Not that I needed to know. I could take one look at you, the way you stare right through people, and know you were a Scorp. And I got news for you, son.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPluto, who governs both the positive and negative aspects of sex, is at this moment entering his own sign, which happens to be our own sign.”
    â€œIs that good?”
    â€œNot good or bad as you damn well know. It all depends on the Scorps themselves. And I’m here to tell you one thing about one Scorp.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m no longer the little gray lizard Scorp you once knew. You’re looking at a fully evolved eagle Scorp, with the well-known Scorp sexuality and only us Scorps know what that means.”
    â€œI believe I am.”
    â€œAnd as for you—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œClearly you are somewhere in between, in transit. That’s fine—as long as you don’t forget one thing.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat happens when two fully evolved Scorps get together.”
    â€œWhat happens?”
    â€œThey can save a country. Or destroy it. Or have an awesome love affair. Hepburn and Burt Lancaster are Scorps.”
    â€œThat’s not—”
    Kitty’s face came into his neck. “Actually, that’s not why I grabbed you.”
    â€œWhy did you grab me?”
    â€œI wanted to tell you where I’m coming from.”
    â€œWhere are you coming from?”
    â€œI’m fixing to beat Marion’s time. And it’s perfectly all right with Marion. She gave me permission before she died. In fact, it was her idea.”
    â€œBeat Marion’s time,” he mused. “I haven’t heard that for a long time.” He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the tree, which had all but vanished.
    He was trying to listen. Kitty was talking about what a good person Marion was, he was, she Kitty was. She was. He was. It was true. They were. Ah, what had happened to them all, all these good persons, all those good things Marion stood for, God, church, home, family, country? Why had he always felt glum when Marion spoke of these good things? What had happened to marriage? Why was not goodness enough for marriage? Why did good married couples look so glum? Old couples, young couples, thirty-five-year-old Atlanta couples in condos, sixty-five-year-old Ohio couples in villas, each as glum as if one had got stuck with the other at a cocktail party for two hours. Two hours? Ten years! Thirty years!
    â€œWhat?” he said and gave a start. Kitty seemed to be talking about her daughter.
    â€œSchizophrenics often are.”
    â€œAre what?”
    â€œShrewd. Walter wanted to call the cops when she escaped but Alistair said that Allison is very shrewd in her own way—it’s true!—and that she’ll probably come back to Valleyhead.”
    â€œThen you don’t know where she is,” he said absently. Now he knew why the girl in the woods looked familiar. She had the same short upper lip, the little double tendon below her nose pulling the lip into a bow and just clear of the lower. The first time he had seen Kitty on a park bench, lips parted so, he had wanted her mouth.
    â€œActually, I think I do. She has some hippie friends in Virginia Beach. Yes, I’m sure that’s where she is. Actually I think it might do her good. She’s no dumbbell. She planned the whole thing, swiped four hundred dollars from her father, and disappeared into thin air. I’m going to give her a few days and then go find her. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you mind having your old flame in your hair for a few days?”
    â€œAh no.”
    There were three shells on the quilt of the Negro cabin where he was lying. The Negro boy had brought them, and even the one dead quail, and put them on the bed