Green Eyes

  The orderly who brought his dinner tray was tanned, fortyish, with razor-cut hair combed over a bald spot and silken black hairs matting the backs of his hands. Though he was no more talkative than the singing orderly, Donnell suspected he could be drawn into a conversation. He flounced pillows, preened before the mirror, and took inordinate pleasure in rubbing out Donnell’s neck cramp. Gentle, lissome fingers. On his pinky he wore a diamond ring, an exceptionally large one for a person earning orderly’s wages, and Donnell, seeking to ingratiate himself, to learn about Jocundra, spoke admiringly of it.

  ‘It belonged to my grandmother,’ said the orderly. ‘The stone, not the setting. I’ve been offered eighteen thousand for it, but I held onto it because you never know when hard times might snap you up.’ He illustrated the snapping of hard times by pinching Donnell’s leg, then launched into an interminable story about his grandmother. ‘She had lovers ‘til she was sixty-seven, the old dear. Heaven knows what she did after that!’ Titter. He put on a dismal face. ‘But it was no picnic being raised by a dirty old woman, let me tell you.’ And he did.

  Donnell had been hoping to weasel information about Jocundra during the course of the conversation, but the orderly showed no sign of allowing a conversation, and he was forced to interrupt. The orderly acted betrayed, said he had no idea where she was, and swept from the room with a display of injured dignity that evoked the angry rustle of taffeta.

  Then it dawned on Donnell. She wasn’t coming back. She had deserted him. How could she just go without telling him, without arranging a replacement? Panicked, he wheeled out into the hall. As he headed for the foyer, hoping to find Edman, a ripple in the carpet snagged his wheels and canted him into one of the potted ferns; the brass urn toppled and bonged against the floor. The door beside it opened, and a thin blond woman poked out her head. ‘Shh!’ she commanded. She knelt by the fern, her nose wrinkling at having to touch the dirt. She had the kind of brittle prettiness that hardens easily into middle-aged bitchdom, and as if in anticipation of this, her hair was done up into a no-nonsense bun and tied with a dark blue ribbon.

  ‘Have you seen Jocundra?’ asked Donnell.

  ‘Jocundra?’ The woman did not look up, packing down the dirt around the fern. ‘Hasn’t she left?’

  ‘She’s left?’ Donnell refused to accept it. ‘When’s she coming back?’

  ‘No, now wait. I saw her on the grounds after supper. Maybe she hasn’t gone yet.’

  ‘Laura!’ A querulous voice leaked out the open door; the woman wiggled all five fingers in a wave, a smile nicked the corners of her mouth, and she closed the door behind her.

  It had been easy to tell Jocundra to leave when he had not believed it possible, but now he was adrift in the possibility, all solid ground melted away. He skidded down the ramp into the parking lot. The lanterns above the stone benches were lit, bubbles of yellow light picking out the blackness, and fireflies swarmed under the oaks. Toads ratcheted, crickets sizzled. She would be - if she hadn’t left - at the bench near the gate. The flagstones jolted the wheels, his chest labored, his arms ached, a sheen of sweat covered his face. Something flew into his eye, batted its wings, clung for a second and fluttered off. A moth. He crested a rise and spotted Jocundra on the bench. She wasn’t wearing makeup, or was wearing very little, and she looked hardly more than a girl. He had always assigned her the characteristic of sophistication, albeit of a callow sort, and so her youthfulness surprised him. Her melancholy expression did not change when she saw him.

  ‘I don’t want you to leave,’ he said, scraping to a halt a couple of feet away.

  She laughed palely. ‘I’ve already left, I just went into New Orleans for the day.’ She regarded him with mild approval. ‘You made it out here by yourself. That’s pretty good.’

  ‘I thought you’d gone,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, not wanting to appear too relieved. ‘I didn’t much like the idea.’

  ‘Oh?’ She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Listen.’ He balked at apology, but gave in to the need for it. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve been an asshole.’

  ‘You’ve had good reason to be upset.’ She smoothed her skirt down over her knees, then smiled. ‘But you have been an asshole.’

  ‘Could it be my nature,’ he said, rankled.

  ‘No, you’re not like that,’ she said thoughtfully. She slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘Let’s go on in.’