Authors: Christin Jensen
By now, Clarice had gotten an appointment with one of the best-regarded psychologists in Nashville and was settling down to tell the middle-aged lady her story.
“So,” Sophie Carstairs summarized, “you have always found your mother to be a hurtful and domineering person.”
“The devil of it is,” Clarice responded, “I still snap to attention mentally when I hear her voice. Before she yelled like that, I never considered the possibility I might be pregnant, but, the minute she said it, I was sure it was true.”
“Had you always been careful to practice safe sex?” Dr. Carstairs asked.
“I thought I had.” Clarice leaned forward eagerly. “You see, I was an absolute beginner. The only boys I’d ever met either ignored me or wanted to squeeze my hooters. Mother told me that was the way it would always be. Farris came as a beautiful surprise.”
“Yes, tell me about Farris.” Dr. Carstairs made a careful note. She tried not to use tape recorders in her practice unless she was doing hypnosis. Most people shied away from tape recorders, but they were used to doctors taking notes.
“He cares about animals just the way I do,” Clarice enthused. “And he didn’t stare at my breasts, even once, until things got intimate between us. I felt like he regarded intimacy just like I do – as a method of private, personal comfort. – I’ve never been hugged, you know, and I doubt he has, either, though the housekeeper, Mrs. McGee, is certainly friendly and demonstrative enough. – She raised Farris, you know. There was this car crash on the way home from the hospital after Farris was born, see, and I know Mr. Croxton must have always blamed himself.”
“So you decided to comfort Farris as well as yourself,” Dr. Carstairs concluded.
“That’s about the way it worked out between us,” Clarice admitted sadly. “I know what happened was partly my fault. – That’s why I’ll never put the blame on him.”
At home, Clarice found commissions for her art work kept coming in. The major Kentucky horse owners were all trying to help her see their charges’ personalities; most faxes included multiple close-ups in all sorts of situations. Several videos were also submitted.
Clarice found drawing a pure joy. Despite the gradual thickening of her body, the photographs still spoke to her of animals who were concerned, eager to challenge, spooked by their circumstances, or simply enjoying living. As she drew and painted, Clarice found herself hoping the horse owners could see what she saw and would treat their animals accordingly.
Farmers’ Cooperatives near Sewanee also asked Clarice to draw their sheep, goats, llamas, and alpacas for their advertising brochures. She traveled around in her little truck with her camera, and nobody seemed to mind that she was pregnant with no father visible. That kind of thing often happened nowadays, and at least she could do something useful.
Clarice’s days were emotionally bumpy now, and she often cried herself to sleep. Still, the full-blown scandal Marion had promised had not dropped onto her daughter’s troubled head.
***
Marion sat in her home office, frustrated. The first problem with raising a scandal, she had discovered, was that the thing usually washed back on you. Also, general sexual laxness appeared to have changed the popular mores, she reflected. These days, apparently, everybody did everything and flaunted it.
John Pirtle, damn him, had actually come out and admitted his paternity when the Nashville newspapers caught him at a museum gathering with his out-of-wedlock daughter. – Marion couldn’t expect to milk any more money from THAT source. He had even taken the occasion to announce that he had commissioned Clarice to do a painting of his grandchildren’s new litter of kittens. – Of course, Marion should have been prepared for that when Pirtle’s wife had died two years before.
But now even Clarice’s new fame was haunting Marion. When she had evicted a shiftless tenant, the matter had made the local newspapers, and there were references to Clarice’s artistic fame. This really infuriated Marion, since it was she who had bought the girl her first drawing materials.
Thus she was not a happy camper when Farris Croxton finally got home and returned her telephone call. “You got my daughter pregnant,” Marion charged immediately.
“Mrs. Saxe,” young Croxton sounded calm and businesslike, “my next call now I’ve gotten home will be to apologize to Clarice and see if there’s any way I can help her.”
“You could have the decency to marry her,” Marion sniped.
“I would have done just that two months ago,” Farris exploded, “except that she told me you were just waiting for the excuse to retire and come up here and mind my business for me. - I knew almost from the first time I met her that Clarice was living under somebody’s thumb, and the two of us agreed together that she needed to take care of her own problem. From the reports I’m getting, she’s trying to do that.”
“You put a detective on me!” Marion’s hiss was quite effective over the phone.
“Yes, I realized soon enough that I needed to know what was going on in Clarice’s life down there.” Almost against his will, Farris matched anger for anger. “You’re a bully, you know, and always have been. Clarice deserves a real life, whether it has me in it or not.” He hung up.
Farris’ next phone call was to Clarice. He had already been to the psychiatrist Todd Blake had recommended, and he felt like his soul had been scoured. “I’m sorry,” were the first words he said into the telephone.
“Don’t be,” Clarice’s voice was calm. Though he could not see her, Clarice’s hands were shaking, and she was glad she had taken a break from painting. “It takes two to tango,” she continued. “Both of us are to blame on this one. We were such children. – Anyway, I’ve planned what I wanted to say to you.” Clarice took a deep breath. “Thanks partially to the publicity you’ve gotten me, I’m well fixed to raise this child on my own. He (she was far enough along that she knew the sex of the baby) can decide on his own whether or not to have a relationship with you. In the meantime, all I’ll accept from you is any artwork commission you might happen to give me.” She pressed the ‘off’ button, afraid to speak any further.
Sitting there on her unfashionable sofa, Clarice broke down. The sound of Farris’ voice had brought everything back so clearly. She could see him as though he stood in front of her, those grey eyes all red-rimmed and ghastly. She could almost
feel
him beside her, with that scent of horse and the peculiar, rich man’s aftershave he always affected.
God, how could she ever begin to deserve such a man? Clarice was well aware now of her own weaknesses. Sometimes, and always at the most awkward moments, she still found herself wanting to run home to Mother and forget everything she’d ever learned.
Farris cut off the dead phone line, crushed. He was going to have a son, and he might never see him. Didn’t Clarice realize what a horrible fate this was? Hadn’t she been happy to find her own father? – Farris could set up a trust fund, of course; that was what fathers of illegitimate children did.
And Clarice herself, how would he ever forget her? Did she think he could ever look at a painting of hers without wanting to hear her husky voice explaining it? Farris tried to cut off his memories, the ones that still woke him at night, erect and needful.
“Calm down, son.” Farris felt Terry McGee’s hand on his shoulder. “I know things are going hard right now, but you can get through this.”
Farris turned to the man who had been like a father to him. Nobody else on the place would dare approach him at a time like this, when he had retreated to the business office for privacy. Now he looked up at Terry’s lined face. “I suppose you could say I’m having rich boy growing up pains.”
Terry sat down in the other office chair. “I know you must hurt like hell now, Farris, but you’ll get through this. You don’t even have to grin while you bear it.”
“You know I really drove Clarice away from me,” Farris confessed suddenly. “I shouldn’t have told her about Lauren Bonner. That story’s too much like the way her mother acts. I should have realized I was warning her off.”
“You know, maybe there was a reason you told her about Lauren Bonner,” Terry responded thoughtfully. “Subconsciously, you could have been pointing out the kind of woman her own mother is. Clarice needed to realize that. You made her really look at a relationship she already knew was not exactly healthy.”
“That’s a comforting thought.” Farris quirked his lips in appreciation of the attempted solace, “but even you can’t swear that it’s true.”
Terry stared at him. “You know, in those three months she was here, I got to know Clarice almost as well as I know you. You’re both alike, you know, running to get comfort from animals because people have hurt you so badly.” He held up an admonitory hand when he saw Farris’ startled face. “Dina and I watched everything, you know. We saw the hurt expression on your toddler face when your dad wouldn’t notice you. Then later we noticed you were kind of aloof-like in school. You looked like some of those horses out there, the ones who act like humans are too insignificant to be noticed. – Of course, there were never any problems that screamed for attention, but we knew you weren’t quite adjusted like the average kid.”
“That sums up so much,” Farris responded unhappily, “and, because I never crossed that line, nobody would think to help me.”
“A lot of us are like that, walking wounded.” Terry gave a regretful smile. “That’s a good portion of the human condition, I’m afraid. Nobody ever notices us.”
“But you worked with Clarice,” Farris stared at the older man. “I think you made a difference there.”
“I talked to her about handling her finances,” Terry replied. “That girl was a babe in the woods! – You didn’t notice, because you’re used to managing business affairs. Clarice wanted me to send her mother half of everything we paid her – and her 26 years old! Then she sat here and lapped up everything I told her. - The best thing I ever did was get some health insurance for her; she sure as hell needs that right now.”
“She mentioned you were teaching her about auto insurance,” Farris remembered. “She acted all goggle-eyed, like she’d never heard of it before.” Suddenly feeling much better, Farris rose. “Thanks for helping out.”
Finally, Marion Saxe decided to take her revenge to the tabloids. By now, she was no longer thinking of dire financial consequences or monetary rewards for herself. None of the people involved, after all, were rock stars or celebrities. They could probably continue making a comfortable living regardless of the publicity; most people seemed to. – What she could do was make sure they were all chased by paparazzi and had photographs from all stages of their lives printed in inappropriate places in the public press.
Marion knew just how to write the blurbs to tickle the palates of the less-responsible press. After all, it wasn’t as though real news was happening 24/7. She started sending queries to the smaller tabloid journals.
Soon, Marion saw her own story written up nationally, with special attention to the now semi-furnished garage apartment. She got to make a tearful confession of her own ‘youthful mistake’ and have a wonderful time emoting on a daytime talk show.
Her first victim, John Pirtle, fired off a sardonic counter-blast, utilizing the name Marion had made up (not gotten from an obituary column) for Clarice’s birth certificate. Pirtle produced a photographic portrait blow-up of Maurice, Comte de Saxe, and told with ironic amusement how that worthy had sired 500 illegitimate children, in addition to having a military career.
Clarice and Farris, without mutual consultation, both decided to treat Marion’s revelations with a ‘grin and bear it’ attitude. They smiled for all photographers and refused to answer any questions from anyone.
At first, the county and state authorities had tried to pressure Professor Santana about leasing her chicken house to a notorious Unwed Mother. Farris Croxton had promptly bought the acre property and deeded it to Clarice as executrix for their as yet unborn son. - That resulted in another flurry of pictures. There was also an amusing idea floated to buy up unused chicken houses for the housing of destitute single mothers.
For the most part, the horse breeding fraternity stood solidly by Two Flags Stables. After all, most horse aficionados had skeletons in their own closets that nobody wanted tumbling loose. Croxton’s own staff policed their grounds thoroughly, so the paparazzi could only hope to catch photos of the fornicator at public affairs.
One result of all this publicity was that many enticing invitations made their way to Two Flags Stables. Farris pulped them for use in the barn cats’ litter boxes. Though publicly handling his slings and arrows well, Farris had become more solitary as time went on. He worked hard with his horses and had fewer words than usual for people, even the McGees.
Alone at night, Farris masturbated into a heavy-duty plastic bag and tried to remember the joyous release he had felt inside Clarice’s pliant, wet abdomen. – The memory proved impossible for him to recapture. Even more impossible to recall was the fulfilled, happy feeling he had experienced in her very presence.
The truth was, as Farris’ psychiatrist had explained in some detail, he had fucked up in a major way. Life had opened a window for him, and he and Clarice between them had managed to close it. In his most despairing moments, Farris wondered if he should have sent a hit man (assuming he could find one who wasn’t undercover law enforcement) to take care of Marion Saxe. Immediately, his mind rejected this. Killing was never a real solution; Marion would always exist in Clarice’s head, even when she herself was dead and buried.
The days were long, and the nights were worse, but Farris kept on keeping on with a dogged persistence. He was punctual in every appointment with his psychiatrist, but resisted the notion of taking a tranquilizer to tame his depression. Dina McGee made him specialized herbal teas instead.
Clarice, in the meantime, was feeling like a badly blown up balloon. She had stopped trying to look attractive for the intrusive photographers; looking attractive simply encouraged them. Clarice rarely went out these days. Her half-brother Angus, who had transferred to Sewanee in case she needed him, always drove her to doctor’s appointments.
Angus Pirtle was rather an endearing young man, Clarice thought. He had swiftly made friends with Patrick Underhill, her lawyer, and happily served as her liaison with Farris’ detectives. Angus also had considerable skill as a cartoonist and frequently had her laughing at his cock-eyed take on various tabloid stories in which she was featured.