Eleanor Rushing: A Novel - Softcover

Friedmann, Patty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582430772 ISBN 13: 9781582430775

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2000

Synopsis

Eleanor Rushing knows Maxim Walters loves her. At the crowded city council meeting, he chooses to sit beside her; from his pulpit, he preaches only to her, a vision in white sitting in the first pew. Soon, he invites her along on a business trip to Nashville, where they make love all night long.

But Maxim sees things a little differently. The distinguished and very married preacher denies his love for Eleanor, but she understands his reluctance to walk away from the plain wife and the narrow path of virtue he chose long ago. Refusing to be refused, Eleanor showers Maxim with gifts and volunteers at the church simply to be near him.

Though she appears to be undaunted, Eleanor is, in fact, deeply troubled. Sparing no detail, she recounts the tragedy that left her mute for four years, and the abuse she has suffered at the hands of her friends and family. Though these memoirs are often at odds with those of others around her, the now-loquacious Eleanor charms us completely until we can't help but become her willing and faithful supporters. In this narrative tour-de-force-- at once hilarious and deeply moving--Friedmann gives a memorable look at the willfulness of obsessive love, the caustic mix of money and leisure, and the power of memory to damage the soul.

About this title

About the Author

Patty Friedmann has written five previous novels, including Eleanor Rushing, Secondhand Smoke, and Odds. Except for slight interruptions for education and natural disasters, she has always lived in New Orleans.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Eleanor Rushing

By Patty Friedmann

Counterpoint Press

Copyright © 2000 Patty Friedmann
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781582430775

Chapter One

I think it is impossible to change the world unless you aretruly evil and so mad for control you never sleep. Andit's ridiculous to try to change yourself at all. Scientists havestudied identical twins who feel pain in the gut at the sametime, as if everything were laid out from the moment theywere conceived. Sometimes I figure all you can do is watchyourself, as if you're viewing a simple, dull film; eventuallyyou find out what was going to happen. Unless deathcatches you by surprise.

    So I go to City Council meetings. I haven't missed onein four years, not even for a case of B-type influenza,which I probably picked up from a crowd in the CityCouncil chambers. Sitting in those meetings is the onlyway I can pretend to feel any breezes of serendipity. Somewherebetween the global and the personal, they play outthe grandest battles of silliness, and I like to guess at them.When I was twenty-three I lived in Washington, D.C.,and sat in regularly on the proceedings of the U.S. Houseof Representatives. But they mumbled and shuffled a lot,and you couldn't see their eyes unless they passed close by.It was good to learn about carcinogens in the Iowa cornafter the drought and how the turnips in western Montanaswelled like giant melons for years after Mount SaintHelens blew, and I believed money should be set aside tostudy such matters, but I couldn't see the congressmen'seyes. So I came home to New Orleans.

    Maxim denies it, but we saw each other for the firsttime at a New Orleans City Council meeting. It had beengoing on for four hours, a Thursday, last October, with nobreak, and the chamber was full of angry people, all brimmingwith piss and hunger. It was shaping up to be one ofthe best, with a chance of violence. Whenever you pit selflessgreen people against hard men and harder women,someone is going to break out and charge across the roomwith fists flying. The ones who usually broke were the oneswho saw themselves as selfless, who were thinking about afine earth or a lovely city that would be here after theywere dead; that meant a lot more to them than the merchantworries of the businessmen. The businessmen couldcut their losses, start over, enjoy the process of provingsomething again.

    This time they were fighting over gambling, and I knewwhat point they were all missing. I felt the way I'd felt infourth grade, when I'd answered so many questions correctlythat the teacher had refused to call on me, and so I'dsat shimmering in my place, waiting to hear someone elsefigure out what I already knew.

    The City Council was willing to line up gambling boatsall along the riverfront docks, so each night men in suitscould unload sacks of money the way longshoremen unloadcoffee. The green people wanted clean parks alongsidethe filthy river, and the short, oily Greek and Indianbusinessmen wanted gamblers everywhere in the FrenchQuarter, spilling dollars into their shops. They wereequally selfish, the green people and the men who sold T-shirtsin the front and hookahs in the back of their stores.They all wanted something to show off.

    I was considering running over to the public library todo some fast reading so I could get up with popular quotesand tell them all why they were wrong, when he came forwardto take the microphone. "Dr. Maximilian Walters,pastor of Uptown United Methodist Church," he said.

    He was the whitest man I'd ever seen. I was in the firstrow of the left section, so I could see his eyes. His hair wassilver, his skin as pale as a sunless child's, his eyes white-gray.He could have gone to any dark continent two hundredyears ago and startled the aborigines.

    He smiled in Mrs. Legendre's direction, having takenthe microphone after her, and his teeth were straight andwhite, too. Mrs. Legendre was a tiny Junior League-haircutwoman with the power only tiny women andmen can have to come up fierce and unassailable. Mrs.Legendre wanted no gambling boats along the entirestretch of the river where the public School of Music andDance sat. "Before I begin," he said, "I'd just like to remindMrs. Legendre that everyone in the arts is a gambler." Shegave him a closed-lipped smile, more seductive than appreciative.I sat up taller in my seat. Mrs. Legendre hadrich, streaky hair like mine, but I was striking where shewas merely serious.

    He threw a single phrase at the City Council, and I wasundone, though half of them were swiveled around in theirchairs talking on telephones. They made me furious doingthat, though sometimes they do it when a speaker deservesrudeness. The process of government isn't clean if everyword isn't heard. "You are all mired in details that make nodifference," he said.

    He said nothing then, and the noise level dropped. Hewaited. "You are all mired in details that make no difference."His voice was low and almost sad, and the room becamea more polite place. He repeated himself once more,then stepped back from the microphone as if he weregoing to return to his seat.

    "Go on, sir," the councilwoman from my district said. Ihadn't voted for her in the last election; she was too condescending.

    "John Wesley," he said, as if anyone in the room otherthan me knew who John Wesley was. "John Wesley abhorredgambling, and so people in our church are supposedto abhor gambling, too. But John Wesley didn't passany particular judgments on gambling; he hated gamblingbecause right then, a couple of hundred years ago, all thepoor coal miners blew their pay on it. Now I've sorted outthe difference between gambling as sin and gambling asgood social policy. But you haven't. Don't tell me you have;you haven't. I hear it. Some of you have been downrightshrill up here." I looked toward Mrs. Legendre, but shewas listening as if in a thrall that only let through whatmade her want him. "If it's sin, don't have it at all. If it'sgood social policy, have it on every street corner. A churchon one corner, a bar on another, a sweetshop on a third, acasino on the fourth. Line the river with docks for gamblingboats. All the way to Baton Rouge. Make every risk-takerin the entire United States feel he has to come downhere, right now. With all his money, of course. You wantbright, empty parks? How about thousands of trumpetplayers and tap dancers who can't earn a living? You wantthe streets filled with fools who'll buy whatever you feellike selling them? It's all one and the same.

    "You're mired down in details. And details don't make adifference. Thank you," he said softly and walked slowlyaway.

    I began to applaud, and there was no other sound in thechambers. Perhaps he sat next to me because of the clapping.But I think all along he knew I was there, waiting forthe right answer, knew it was time to come to me. He settledgently into his seat, and I continued to clap, my handsin front of his face, for a few seconds. Then the din andrudeness started up again in the room. "You were magnificent,"I whispered, a thrill running down me.

    He patted my hand, then with one swift movementpushed himself out of his seat from the armrests. "Seeyou later," he said, not looking back. He slipped out theside exit.

    I knew then how much he was going to want me. Howmuch he was going to battle with his holy behavior untilhe gave in. He probably has told everyone—his wife andthat damn Ellis Ryan and the police and anyone who'd listen—thathe has no recollection of that day he went beforethe City Council—or was it the City Planning Commission?Or the Zoning Board? Or the Ecumenical Council?They all run together in his mind after a while—he goesbefore whomever so frequently, on so many matters, thatno details stand out. He is lying. I sat in that same seat,front row, third from the aisle on the left side, and I delicatelystroked my hand where he'd touched it until theCity Council adjourned for the day, at 9:46 that evening. Iremember everything.

Chapter Two

When I was ten, my mother and father died in thecrash of Eastern Flight 66, and for reasons I've neverunderstood my grandfather sent Naomi to tell me. I supposehe had a lot of business to take care of right away. Myfamily will end with me on both sides, a daughter of onlychildren whose parents themselves were only children.That's a great deal of money and genetic potential to filterdown to a single individual.

    Naomi had told my grandfather she could drive, and hetold her to take my father's Mercedes and go get me inTennessee. Naomi was twenty-three years old, and shecould keep a car on the road all right, even at high speeds,but she couldn't read anything that hadn't appeared in theScott-Foresman primer, so it took her three days to getwithin a hundred miles of my sleepaway camp. No one hadtold Mrs. Carlton, the director, she was coming, and whenNaomi called collect from the side of the highway, Mrs.Carlton refused to accept the charges. Naomi tried again,this time person-to-person to me. Mrs. Carlton told theoperator to hold and waddled on her stocky, unfit legs allthe way up to my cabin. "Do you have a friend namedNaomi? Who likes to talk like a Negro?" she said to me. Itwas rest period, and the seven other girls in the cabinstrained to listen from their bunks. It was the first time restperiod had been interrupted.

    "We have a housekeeper named Naomi. And she's black."

    "Ah," she said, wisdom in her voice. "Girls generally don'ttry tricks like that until they're thirteen." I shrugged. Mrs.Carlton put her finger to her lips, as if no one had noticedher terrible presence, and motioned me to follow her.

    "This had better be good," she said when we were in heroffice, her hand covering the phone receiver as she held itout in front of her. It was a heavy black desk model, thepaint rubbed off at the edges. She put the phone to her ear,then pulled it away and looked at it, as if some tiny demonhad slipped a slender feather out of the earpiece and tickledher eardrum. "Hung up," she said, slamming it into thecradle. It rang again, and I sprang for it. I'd had time, goingdown the hill behind her, to have decided that my parents,one or both, or my grandfather, or all three were dead. Iwas sure it was my parents, because they went to New Yorktoo often for no reason. My heart was racing so fast that itsent every drop of blood in my body up to my head, and Iwas heavy-brained and trembling with a funny sort of excitement."Where are you, Naomi?" I said into the phone.

    "Damn if I know. Tennessee, but that's about it." I couldhear truck traffic in the background.

    "Do you accept the charges?" the operator said.

    "Yeh, yeh, yeh," I said, an adult in that split second,without trying. "What happened?"

    "Not supposed to tell you until I get there. Tell me howI get there."

    I lost logic. I was in Tennessee, and Naomi was in Tennessee,and I had to see her right then, but I was ten yearsold and knew nothing more about the roadways up therein the mountains than the landmarks I'd passed coming in.A child's landmarks—a Dairy Queen, a billboard for RubyFalls. Naomi was never going to find me. "I don't knowwhere I am, for God's sake," I said. "Tell me what happened,because you're never going to get here." I was closeto screaming.

    Mrs. Carlton took the phone away from me. "What isthis all about?" she said, the way rich women were supposedto talk to maids. She nodded, impatient. "Beg pardon?"she said, nodding again. "So give me your location."Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. "I have to know morethan that." After a minute she covered the receiver withher hand. "This is all very unfortunate," she said.

    "Somebody's dead," I said.

    "Shh, shh. She's getting the man at the gas station. Ofall things."

    It took her ten minutes to put Naomi onto the road thatwould bring her within a couple of miles of the camp, butthat was as far as she could get without having to say,"Now stop the fussing, or you're never going to get here."I had time to race forward mentally, to push my parentsinto a distant haze from which something new and bettermight emerge. Joys and attentions could come instead.Going to camp already had taught me how to push peopleaway through geography. With camp it had been simple:to tamp down the ache of not being tended, I asked a girlfrom home to mail me dozens of sticks of chewing gumwrapped in the Sunday Times-Picayune. With terror at thedeath of my parents, I could shift a grim fantasy to a splendidone, go from sadness that my mother would never seethe tray I was painting for her in the crafts hut to a rush ofjoy, knowing I would become a treasure at school. Friendswould be fascinated with me for having no parents, and Iwould get party invitations and valentines from everyone.They'd walk in a protective circle around me at school,stroking my hair. And the pretty teachers would hug me,give me extra chances. My mother would have taken thetray and shoved it into the back of the butler's pantry. Shepreferred the finest things; that's why she was always draggingmy father onto a plane to Dallas or New York.

    Mrs. Carlton was going to wait two hours, then go up tothe junction in the camp van and wait for Naomi. I almostsaid that I wanted to go, but I'd have had to spend two hourswith Mrs. Carlton, waiting, then untold amounts of timesitting in the van at the side of a two-lane undivided highway,straining, looking for a familiar car, answering politequestions from Mrs. Carlton, who knew how to run a businessbut didn't know what to say to young girls. She'd jumpout and shush Naomi, and I wouldn't get to ride in with her,wouldn't find out why she was there until she was inside thecamp property. I told Mrs. Carlton I had campcraft afterrest period. "And horseback riding after that. And I forgetwhat after that. Oh, swimming." That schedule required alot of clothes changing, a lot of jogging from one end of thecamp to the other, and I sniffled.

    "Look, you have a good afternoon," Mrs. Carlton said,and I heard her sigh heavily as she gently prodded me outof her office. Annoyance that comes of missing a nap wasin that sigh.

    I didn't worry that afternoon. I told my campcraftcounselor I thought my parents were dead, and she lookedat me queerly; she was nineteen, not yet reverent aboutparents, either. "You're weird, Eleanor," she said, thenshowed me how to hack a vee into a fat log.

    "I might chop off all my toes," I said after a while ofswinging the hatchet over one shoulder and then the other.I didn't like the idea of being weird, but I did like the ideaof keeping her guessing. "I might chop off your toes."

    "You're a little shit," she said pleasantly.

    "No, I'm not," I said. She left me alone, maybe to getthrough the entire log before the hour was up, maybe toswing wrong and hit a major blood vessel. Sweating andfurious, I quickly reached that satisfying final chopthrough the bark and into the dirt while another girl wasstill missing her log on half her swings.

    Naomi came to me at the riding ring. A skinny blackwoman with the funk of the road all over her, standing atthe rail and wondering what the hell white folks weregoing to do next with their money: I saw her as I roundedthe far side of the ring, the saddle slapping my narrow buttockswhile the horse trotted along and I paid no attention.I screamed her name, and the rest of the class,spine-straight and posting for all they were worth, stoppedand turned to look at me. I jumped down, my foot catchingin the stirrup so I landed on my back, and I left thehorse standing there, curious about the first rule-breakinggirl he'd ever carried.

    I set out at a bowlegged run, jodhpurs chafing, ready tothrow myself against Naomi so what she told me would bemuffled and safe. But Mrs. Carlton was with her, and sheheld an arm out straight, palm forward, to bring me upshort in front of Naomi. "Get that horse," she said to theriding instructor, then motioned me away from the ring,off toward a thicket alongside the path from the stable. Ialways associate the sour straw smell of horse pee and theacrid odor of preadolescence with the moment when Ilearned about my parents. "They gone, baby," Naomi said,and I flung my arms around her waist; Mrs. Carltoncouldn't make up any more rules for me. I didn't cry, didn'tsob, just nuzzled against Naomi's bony chest, squeezingmy eyes shut so I wouldn't have to know anything. Thesmell of me and the horses mixed with Naomi's baby powderthat had been sweated through so she had little balls ofwhite paste on her brown skin. We stood there, my holdnot letting anything happen, until Mrs. Carlton beganshifting from one foot to the other, brushing ever so lightlyagainst branches that overhung the path. Naomi was quickto pick up the signals of irritable, busy southern whitewomen. "Where you want me to bring her?" Naomi said.

    "We'll take her to her cabin," Mrs. Carlton said, as ifNaomi were suddenly going to break loose in the campand steal all the girls' radios.

    "Where you cabin is?" Naomi said, leading me backdownhill toward the main camp, filling the path with herselfand me so Mrs. Carlton had no choice but to trail behind.I pointed ahead, my other arm around Naomi'swaist, pulling her gently in this direction or that as wewalked to my cabin. "You know how planes going to crashwhen they taking off and when they landing but not in between?"she said. "They plane get all the way to New York;then it crash. I figure they knowed they was going to die.You know you maybe going to die when the plane comingin for a landing." I shrugged a shoulder, steered Naomi upa path away from the lake, and I heard Mrs. Carlton leavefrom behind us, satisfied Naomi was silly enough to beharmless; she could go rest up before supper. She couldtake a small gamble with me since I had no parents whowere going to wrangle with her about bad decisions.

    When darkness wasn't far off, Mrs. Carlton made a decisionthat had little to do with me and much to do with goodbusiness. Every girl in that camp came from somewheresouth of Maryland, and Mrs. Carlton had to be cautiousabout tales that'd go out in letters home. She saw Naomi asa contaminant. "I'll be frank. You wouldn't want me to beless than frank, right?" she said. Naomi and I were sittingtogether on the bunk below mine, and Mrs. Carlton was sittingacross from us on another lower, her thick kneescrossed so I could see the tops of her white socks under herslacks. Naomi nodded, tired and resigned. "All our coloredhelp goes home at night. In fact, the only colored person Ithinks ever been here at night's the little nurse we had lastsummer up in the infirmary. And I'm here to tell you shewas on her feet all night. You understand?"

    "Sure," Naomi said.

    "No," I said, and Naomi told me to hush.

    "Anyway," Mrs. Carlton said, tight-lipped, "if you'd like,I'll put Eleanor in the infirmary overnight, and you canstay up there with her. The chairs are quite comfortable.I've sat up in one more nights than I like to think." Shegave us a hopeful little smile.

    "You think maybe you could find me a hotel? I coulduse me a bath. And probably I been asleep maybe fivehours since I been in New Orleans. Total. I could use mea bed, too." Naomi was using the voice she saved for answeringthe phone at our house. "Rushing residence," she'dsay, practically crooning. And when it was someone callingfor her, she'd break out of it. "Shoot, man, I told you don'tbe calling me a hundred time a day."

    Mrs. Carlton said she could certainly come into the officeand phone around. People can know things even whenthey haven't been told them outright, and Mrs. Carltonknew Naomi had no way of going through the YellowPages of the half-inch phone book. "Never mind. I can justdrive around. Probably I passed a million hotels coming uphere," Naomi said, patting my knee to reassure Mrs. Carlton.With a promise that my counselors would pack andship my things, that Naomi could leave with me whenevershe was up tomorrow, Mrs. Carlton rose to leave, bumpingher head on the upper bunk, her eyes tearing. "Maybe shecoming back," Naomi said, offering no sympathy.

    "No, I'm absolutely not," I said, looking Mrs. Carltonstraight in the watery eye.

    No one spoke to me that evening, and I quietly packedmy most private things into a duffel. I'd sneaked to thedrugstore before I'd left home, spent a month's allowanceon sanitary napkins, a pack of razors, and a can of deodorant.Those supplies were to cover all the shames of puberty,things no one would offer to tell me about. I'd onlybeen at camp a few weeks, and I hadn't had the nerve totake them out, though the other girls displayed theirs withzest, shaving their bald underarms in the shower so everyoneelse could see. I wasn't ready to need those things, andthey were still in the paper drugstore sack, under a pile offlannel shirts on my shelf. I packed only my panties and anextra pair of sandals. Clothes that little rich girls bought inbulk to spend two months in the Tennessee mountainswere of no use in New Orleans. Any time of year, muchless summer. I hoped my camp clothes, all from the list,would disappear. My mother had given the list to Naomi,sending her downtown to D. H. Holmes on the streetcar.Naomi in turn had handed the list to the salesclerk, whowanted to make no decisions on matters of taste. Everythingwas red, white, navy, or military green. Naomi hadsewn a name tape in each item, embarrassing me mightily;I had wanted someone to write my name with an indeliblelaundry pen in the necks and waists of all my clothes.With neat, slanted, capital letters.

    Naomi was going to sleep in the Mercedes a piece of amile up the road from the camp gate. "You need me, yousneak out, I be to the right, down a little ways, justenough," she told me, and took my sleeping bag with her.I couldn't imagine needing her badly enough to travel thatfar in the dark. I was lying on top of my stripped bunk,wrapped in a navy wool blanket, so new it had no pills onit, and I shook with cold. I felt it most in my feet, and Icould make no contortion that would put my feet into awarm fold where they would not be so icy. The cold becametoo much, and I felt the way I had once with a hundred-five-degreefever, panicked for warmth, sobbing forwarmth. I sat up and curled myself into a ball, rubbing myupper arms with my hands, rocking back and forth. Thegirl who slept below me did nothing about the motion fora while and then, with a sleepy huff, rolled herself up in allher covers and slid down onto the floor. I knew I was goingto be chilled for the rest of my life, and with that notion Isloughed off a thick layer of terrors. I wrapped the blanketaround me, slid down to the floor on the side opposite theone on which my bunkmate was lying, scuffed into mysandals, and went looking for the Mercedes. In the dark, Iwas to be feared, hooded in almost-black, and I could run,making my own heat, until I found the car. I rememberedfrom last winter that the car could warm up in three minutes,even idling. I ran fast, blanket trailing, picking updust and pine needles, and nothing caught me.

    Naomi wasn't in the car. All the doors were locked, andas I ran around from one door to another, struggling withthe handles and banging on the windows, I knew only thatI wasn't going back to my cabin, that if I didn't find NaomiI was going to throw the blanket off myself and die rightthere. I screamed her name, and I heard her say "Eleanor?"from a clearing about five yards from the road.

    She was sitting huddled on top of my sleeping bag,which was unrolled but not unzipped, one corner foldedback over her feet. "Baby, you scare me," she said.

    "I'm not exactly unscared," I said. Naomi patted thespot next to herself, and when I sat beside her she begantugging the blanket away so that she could drape it overboth of us. She let in pockets of cold air, but I could feelher musky warmth right away, and I wiggled up close toher. "Jesus, girl, I been freezing," she said. I suggested weget into the car, turn the heater on. "You ain't never heardof carbon monoxide? You sit in a running car, you couldteetotally die. And I don't trust no car that's off, neither."She slipped her arm under mine, finding my pocketsof warmth. Her arm was as cold as a dead person's, andI pushed it out. "We could leave. We could just go home,"I said.

    Naomi shook her head no. "The way I been figuring,you take a black girl, a white child, and a Mercedes-Benz,and you already got what look like a kidnapping. Going allthe way through Mississippi ain't going to be no breezeanyhow, and I don't want that old cow calling up the statepolice after me." I giggled. "No, I got to get me some rest.And you got to kiss all those little friends goodbye. Tomorrowplenty enough time." At that she lay down herhead on her big vinyl purse, holding me in spoons, as if Iwere a hot water bottle, and I wriggled around until myhead lay on her arm, so I took in sour baby powder andripeness with each breath.

    I fell asleep, warm and sure, down into dreams. Naomitouched me, stroked my hair—she always had told me Ihad good hair, the kind of hair she'd always wanted whenshe was small, but the kind she'd never have, even with relaxers;I slid back down into my dream, I felt her fingers inmy panties, I sat up, she didn't pull away, "What're youdoing?" She didn't move her hand, slipped one of her dry,ashy fingers into my pink little crack and I mashed myknees together, and she licked the finger, over and over, asif it were dipped in sugar, getting it as wet as she could, shepressed my knees apart, easily, having more strength thanI did, "You going to like this, you watch"; the wet fingerslid back in, found my special bump. "Stop it."

    She took my hand, pushed it down between us, into thenappiness in her drawers.

    "No."

    Naomi sat up, eyes round in a frown, as if I'd awakenedher. Before she could speak, I ran, without the blanket,until I was back in my cabin. I washed my hands untilmorning, letting the water run, disturbing no one. Thewarm water took off the chill as each pulse of blood traveledthrough my hands. But at morning bells, I was stillsure that my fingers stank, and I touched no one with myhands, said not a word, the rest of the hours that I wasthere.

Continues...

Excerpted from Eleanor Rushingby Patty Friedmann Copyright © 2000 by Patty Friedmann. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1582430772
• ISBN 13: 9781582430775
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284