Free The Whiteness of Bones by Susanna Moore

not interested in any tall tales about old lovers and eels, went to the wall to look closely at the lovely watercolors, possibly for the first time. “He always did have wonderful taste. His awful wife gave everything to the Museum when he died. Just to spite me, I’m sure. These
are
good, aren’t they?”
    She took one of the paintings from its moiré ribbon and tilted it to catch the light. Distracted by this find in her very own guest room, she wandered out, leaving Mamie standing there. She took the watercolors with her.
    Mamie had to fight up to the last minute to wear her own dress, a pale lime green voile of Hungarian embroidery, rather than the dress that Alysse wanted her to wear, a fire engine red taffeta with big black pom-poms that made Mamie look like a rather intimidated Carmen. Of Mamie’s own dress, Alysse said dismissively, “at least it’s
eau de Nil
.”
    During dinner, Mamie won a wide smile from her aunt when she made Mr. Zimmerman, an investment banker, laugh out loud during the first course, a
Roulade au Fromage
. Mr. Zimmerman was very interested in what he called the “real Hawai‘i,” his experience being limited to the Kahala Hilton and the nightly Korean call girl. He had an idea that anyone whose family had lived there for generations was rich and aristocratic, and Mamie, who had never thought her family to be either, amused him with a description of going to see her Aunt Emma.
    As a McDougal on her mother’s side, Aunt Emma was thepossessor of as revered a local name as it was possible to inherit. Aunt Emma lived in an enormous, wood Victorian house in such disrepair that it was considered dangerous to walk on the second-story floorboards in 1920. She refused to leave the house and downtown Honolulu had been built around her six filthy, entangled acres. She told Mamie and Claire that when she died the land would belong to them. Mamie and Claire were not fond of visiting Aunt Emma.
    “She is very boring and she smells bad,” Mamie said to Mr. Zimmerman. “We’re given weak tea and stale Ritz crackers.”
    Aunt Emma confined herself to one crowded room, and it was not unusual to see a large black wharf rat (the docks were at the end of Ward Avenue) trot boldly past on tiptoe, hugging the moldings more out of custom than fear.
    “Aunt Emma always watches the rat calmly and says, ‘Those rats first landed here with the ancient Tahitians who sailed due north in their huge double-outrigger canoes, as big as longhouses, searching for new islands …’ Once she begins one of her lessons in Hawaiiana, it is awfully hard to stop her. Claire once said that the rats in Aunt Emma’s room must have been very, very old.”
    After dinner, Mamie was left on the sofa with a beautiful red-haired woman. Alysse whispered to Mamie that the woman, Dodo Hennessey de Santiago, had been the most famous model of her day and Mamie was surprised to learn that “of her day” meant only a year earlier. She had not realized that Dodo was six months pregnant until Dodo said, “I’ve never had tits before and it’s the only thing that makes this bearable.” Even though she was wearing a tightly cut dress, Mamie could barely make out a swelling stomach through the Lycra sheath.
    Mamie asked Dodo all of the polite questions as she passed her a demitasse and cream and English rock sugar.
    “Is this your first child?”
    “And last.”
    “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”
    “It doesn’t matter, I just want a healthy baby.”
    Despite Dodo’s optimistic remark about her new breasts, Mamie was not really prepared when Dodo casually said, “I’m having a Caesarean delivery so as not to stretch my vagina.”
    “How sensible,” Mamie said, sipping her coffee.
    “
I
thought so,” said Dodo, and asked the butler for a tequila.
    In her aunt’s mirrored bathroom, mirrored toilet and walls and floor and ceiling, Alysse asked Mamie about her dinner partner, perhaps in the hope of catching Sid Zimmerman