Touch of Magenta
by Linda Loveland Reid.
Each of these four excerpts involves one of the two main characters.
First Excerpt...
Corri (1971, Sonora) |
It had happened fast. After her father died, her mother seemed to collapse under the weight of immense sadness. The ache of inadequacy invades Corri even now, remembering how hard she tried to fill the gap, to engage her mother back into life. On each trip up and down, from Santa Monica to Sonora, the idea of moving her mother closer to L.A. mingled in her mind with a large dose of guilt, her mother’s words ever present: I will live in this beauty until they carry me out feet first. Sonora, even in a convalescent hospital, represented home, by osmosis it cradled a lifetime of family and memories. No, the better, tougher answer Corri knew was to quit her job and find work in Sonora. Then, before the particulars could be worked out, before coaxing her mind around such a sacrifice—her mother suddenly failed. No more time for planning. Guilt flooded in.
The driveway to the all too familiar nursing home comes into view. Flowering Rose Convalescent Home. The sign awash in purple and white lettering has pink roses entwined through the words. Why do they call places where people obviously come to die, flowering or blooming? Well, Corri reasons, they can’t be called, Trails End or Last Roundup. Who would put her parent in a place like that?
Corri looks down the picket-lined driveway. Instantly her senses are assailed by roaming wheelchairs and barely coherent occupants. Nursing homes have a distinctive smell of too much sickness mixed with too much loneliness.
She remembers Bessie, her mother’s roommate. A sweet person, always ready to visit and help pass the hours Corri spent at her mother’s silent bedside. Bessie gave Corri a secret recipe for making “melt in your mouth” Bonbons. Old people, Corri learned, are just like anyone else. Just people, but, who have run out of future.
They say, if nature gets to play itself out, parents becomes the children. Mother had gone quickly but Father declined gradually. As Corri assisted him to slip uneasily from bed to wheelchair, she found it unnatural to see his shrunken white thigh, a place of fierce privacy, now on display for nurses, other patients, and reluctant daughters. Maybe a lack of siblings contributed to Corri’s awkwardness, no brother or sister running about nude. Definitely not her mother and father without clothes. Unimaginable. She still remembers when eleven, the flick of shock as the bathroom door opened on her naked father, his penis somewhat enlarged and pressed against the white sink. The door closed quickly, the incident never mentioned. Corri could not consider asking her mother about such things, about penises.
As the hospital recedes into the background, Corri wonders, am I relieved not to turn in here today or sorry that I am heading to the funeral?
“God!” she winces. Death is not easy. It causes you to explore too many hidden and sacred corners of your mind. This day, these memories! Soon it will be over, only a few last hurdles. She checks the rear-view mirror to be sure tears and eyeliner aren’t commingling down her cheeks. Her eyes look puffy. Crow’s feet no doubt lurk below the surface. She makes a promise to invest in some eye cream, that cucumber-essence stuff, and a pound of expensive wrinkle-free night balm. She smoothes her jet-black hair, recently cut from shoulder to ear length, just enough to tuck behind. Hank said she was sophisticated, in a sexy way. Corri wasn’t sure what that meant. She patted her finger at the tender area just below her eye. The big four-O two steps away, not married, no kids, no satisfying job, and now—puffy eyes. What next?
Second Excerpt...
Pegeen (1899, Signapore. Pegeen is inside an opium den) |
Pegeen’s hand pressed firmly against the paint-peeled green door. A peculiar, not unpleasant smell filled her nose, stung her eyes. Geu Pao nodded in greeting as she followed him in silence across the small room, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. Six bunks, stacked two deep, lined the yellowed, stucco walls. Most of the beds were occupied, the full sleeves of men’s pajamas flapping softly as they conversed the gossip of the week, their manner casual. Other beds were inhabited by bodies that did not move, clumps dreaming into the distance, minds living in some better world.
Pegeen side-stepped three Chinese in white dress shirts, sprawled on mats next to a small tray that contained a tumbler of thick brown syrup, some brass thimbles, one or two bits of wire, along with burning tapers and pipes. Pegeen ducked to miss a clothesline stretching from one corner to the other, from which hung the men’s business jackets, collars, and cravats. They stopped momentarily at seeing a woman in their midst, then continued to murmur the news of the day. They drew vigorously on their pipes, more so, Pegeen thought, than their entranced, sunken eyes would seem to allow.
Geu Pao stopped before a small Chinese woman. “This Tzu-Sue,” he said with a slight bow, shoving her toward Pegeen.
Like Gue Pao, Tzu-Sue had on a long black gown, but with a cummerbund around her tiny waist; her hair held back into a severe bun, exposing an expressionless face. Mr. Johnny had requested Pegeen be provided with an assistant during her “visits.” Tzu-Sue must be a prostitute, Pegeen knew, as these were the only women allowed in opium dens. Except now—herself.
Tzu-Sue put her hands out and bowed several times in accepting a blanket from Geu Pao for Pegeen, an unexpected gesture. Geu Pao grinned and moved silently away.
At the nod of Tzu-Sue’s head, Pegeen climbed onto a wooden bunk and leaned back against the tilted headboard. Tzu-Sue covered Pegeen and sat down on a stool beside the bed, turning her attention to a table filled with “cooking’ utensils, a potbelly stove nearby.
Tzu-Sue placed the ball of opium on a small iron skewer and set it over the flame. As it began to bubble and fume, she inserted a pin into the syrup and twisted it around in the flame until the substance hardened. She then inserted the pill-like globule into the barrel of the pipe. Pegeen opened her mouth and Tzu-Sue placed the pipe to her trembling lips. Just at the right moment, when the opium vaporized—as Tzu-Sue’s finger tapped sharply—Pegeen inhaled, her chest rising as she held the smoke inside, then ever so slowly let it out, leaving its hallucinogenic deposit behind.
Third Excerpt...
Corri (1971, Sonora - Corri unexpectedly meets ex-lover at cocktail party) |
“Have you met our professor?” Janice asks, swooping up beside Corri, swaying slightly. Corri manages an “Unh-unh,” through a full mouth, shaking her head from side to side.
Janice rather loudly insists, “You must! You must meet him. You are right for each other.”
“No!” Corri strangles out.
“Oh, I know there’s Hank,” Janice says, “but, a ‘bird in the bush’ and all that,” she smiles coyly and drags a reluctant Corri across the crowded room with her plate of hors d’oeuvres teetering precariously.
“Stephen Duncan, meet Miss Corri Montclair,” Janice says with a dramatic flare, tapping the tuxedo-clad shoulder of a tall drink-of-water.
Stephen turns around and without skipping a beat, says softly, “It’s a pleasure…a pure pleasure.” He stands grinning; sea-blue eyes waiting for Corri’s response.
Corri is speechless! Her pulse skips and she goes weak. Get a hold, she admonishes. Hang on to what little dignity you can. “Well, I see you have two jobs, Mr. Duncan,” she manages after fighting down a mouthfull of egg, “Journalist and Professor. I guess it’s hard to make ends meet these days?” That was stupid. She takes a gulp of champagne.
“True, but fortunately both of my jobs have recently led me to meet some interesting, and, may I say, lovely people,” he banters back.
He’s playing the Clark Gable charmer, Corri notes with disgust.
“I knew you two would hit it off,” Janice grins, then staggers away.
Corri wants a cigarette right now, she’d smoke the hell out of it. She’d pull out a long cigarette holder and ask for a light, then draw on it heavily blowing the smoke into Stephen’s face, while waiting for her next inspiration. Instead, she sets her plate down, tidies her mouth, and says, “I can’t do this. I’m no good at it. It has been wrenching meeting you again. Good evening.” Her eyes clash at his.
“Corri, please,” he responds, touching her arm lightly.
Corri pulls away as if struck! How dare he touch her. But, before she can speak, and it’s going to be stinging, he says…
“I want to apologize for yesterday, after the funeral. It was unforgivable for me to bother you. I’m embarrassed to have been such a clod. My feeble excuse is, I wanted to see you and had no other way to get in touch. My stupid solution was to just show up. Can you forgive me?”
He looks fabulous.
“I thought I had forgiven you, sixteen years ago, and me, for being young and super stupid. But now I don’t think so. Oh, I’m okay with me…but you? Now, as I’m forced to reassess, I’ve decided that you’re an asshole.” A nearby reveler looks over, to whom Corri gives a cool smile.
“You have every right to be mad.” He’s no longer grinning, his eyes soft. “I’d like to have some time with you, Corri.”
Mad. Corri can’t believe what she hears. Mad, as if he was late for a date or forgot my birthday! What’s wrong with him? “And I still have the same answer. No, on all counts. ‘No’ on my parents and a definite ‘No’ on me.”
“Corri,” he says quickly, before she walks off, “we professor types need to be published. I’m working on a project now, a paper that I hope will get me another few years on the university rolls. Please. it might be good getting to know one another again?”
Corri reaches for her champagne. Maybe she’ll throw it in that handsome face. Watch it splash into his eyes, then dribble down onto his tuxedo, satisfyingly wetting his perfect demeanor, bouncing off the lapels of his tux. The reveler next door would love it. Too bad he wasn’t worth it. Instead she takes a big gulp.
Why doesn’t she walk away? Some unspoken bond is holding her here, an odd connection. They’d shared a past-life, an intimate experience, which, hurtful or not, provided the emotional energy that now flies between them. Emotion, like glue, provides a strong bond—negative energy stimulates, maybe even more than positive.
Corri falls quiet.
“What do you think,” he is saying. You always were a smart one. I’d love having you on my team.” He looks at her intently. Then, before she can object to his familiarity, “At the risk of incurring your wrath, again, I do think your parents fit the package.”
Corri is amazed at how nonchalant and un-effected he seems. As if nothing but a slight acquaintance had passed between them. She’s not sick but something is definitely happening in her stomach. “My parents do not fit the package. They didn’t do anything. They lived quiet, even uninteresting lives. There is no story in my parents. Goodbye Professor, as in forever!” She steadies herself then slams her glass down, turns to walk away.
“What about you, Corri? Is there a story in you? I mean you’re part of the family…should I study you?” he says gently.
She swings to face him. He’s flirting! And, he is dynamite handsome. Corri is way past knowing that coming to this party is a huge mistake.
“Corri,” he says quietly, reaching for her arm, “I’m so sorry for what you‘ve been going through. I haven’t helped and I’m sorry. You look great by the way.”
She pulls away. “Don’t worry about me, Stephen. I’ve allotted so much time every day to feel sorry for myself and it’s working out swell. Our meeting has added immensely to my mental health.”
“At least you were able to squeeze this party into your schedule, and I am glad you did or we might not have met each other again.”
Is he teasing? One minute his eyes are sincere, the next they’re dancing. He is dead right, of course. What is she doing here if she’s so damn busy? One thing is clear. Her strong instinct to avoid this man has nothing to do with lack of time. “Stephen, all of my family are dead…we are not who you’re looking for.”
He moves in close, and with that crooked nose and great eyes, says, “You don’t know what I’m looking for, Corri.”
Okay, she’s out of here!
Her pulse shoots up and she can feel all the wrong things happening to her body. And, worse…she might cry. She needs to leave now!
Fourth Excerpt...
Pegeen - 1904, Italy |
She shifted in the wooden arm-chair, better to meet the doctor’s eyes. Behind him stood a bookshelf with a framed picture of the doctor, a smiling plump woman, and two children hugging a large panting dog. The only personal item in an otherwise sterile room.
“Of course, the science of anesthesiology has been quite modernized over the last decade, but, again—there are risks.”
“Anesthesiology?” Pegeen asked. “Putting me to sleep?”
“Ya, of course, Fraulein,” he responded with animation, moving about the room excitedly, using his arms in wide expanse as he explained the details of the operation. Herr Doctor was definitely interested in Pegeen’s case.
The original scar would be cut away, thrown out. This jolted Pegeen. A part of her body simply thrown away? “The skin from each side of the old scar will be stitched together in a zigzag pattern down your face,” the doctor explained. “As it heals, the new scar will better match the contours of your face, determined by facial muscles and the natural lines of you expressions.”
“Excuse me, doctor. New scar?” Pegeen asked. “Am I to go through all of this and still have a scar?”
“Tiny,” Doctor Hansburg responded. “Some kleine scars, tiny white lines, here and there,” he said, touching her face. “No big, wide scar pulling at your skin like now. Some little white lines you can cover with cosmetics,” he finished with a smile, eyes shining, becoming less the frigid scientist.
She offered a frown. “Doctor, what is the biggest danger I face?”
“Cutting too deep,” he responded. “We must not cut the nerves. However,” he continued quickly seeing Pegeen’s concern, “this is not possible. Because that is my job, to know this region of the body. We cannot see these nerves, so it is important that I know all about your face. And, I do,” he finished, whisking his glasses off and giving a confident nod.
“So, could my face be paralyzed?”
“No worry, my Fraulein,” he said, softly. “Now, we need to discuss the anesthetic.” He readjusted his glasses, carefully curling each wing over each ear. “Have you ever taken morphine?”
“I…well, maybe. Is opium a form of morphine?” Pegeen asked, wondering how much she needed to divulge.
The good doctor, eyes on clipboard, glanced up at Pegeen’s question. She could see him wondering what kind of woman he’d drawn. “No, it’s the other way around. Morphine is a derivative of opium. We will give you morphine to calm you, and for pain, but it is important that you not be completely unconscious.”
“You mean, I am to be awake while you cut on my face?”
For the first time Pegeen felt fear.
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Northern California Novelist