Cloud Nine

Chapter 12

I wedded her. I wedded her and kept on wedding her — that night, the next day, which was Sunday, and the next night. Some of those weddings lasted an hour, when time stood still, and we didn’t care if it ever got going again. Often, she would be topside, her head on my shoulder, whispering: “I’m not asleep, I’ve got my eyes open, I’m enjoying the view, up here from Cloud Nine. It’s so pretty you can’t believe it — things I’ve never seen, except on TV sometimes, horses and sheep and cows, and chickens running around. Ducks too, but I have seen them, flying over, V-shape. And flowers, red ones, white ones, and blue ones, all kinds of beautiful flowers. And trees, gray big trees, and bushes. And grass, green grass that smells like you... Now, you’re on our cloud, looking up. What do you see?”

“Stars.”

“Are they pretty?”

“Beautiful.”

“There’s just one thing.”

“Yes, little Sonya. What is it?”

“This cloud is shaped like a bubble chair. Suppose something made it go pop. What would happen to us?”

“We’d go bump.”

“That wouldn’t be so good.”

“We can’t let it happen, ever.”

“That’s it. It’s up to us, Mr. Kirby.”

“There’s one other thing, too.”

“...Yeah? What’s that?”

“Must you call me Mr. Kirby?”

“You mean, now that we’re married?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean, of course.”

“Or are we?”

“I thought that was settled.”

“Then — what does your mother call you?”

“Gramie.”

“Would you like me to call you that?”

“I’d love it.”

“I’ll practice up, in my mind.”

So she practiced up, in her mind, and then one time, in a flaming moment, whispered: “Gramie!” That did it, and from then on she seemed like a wife. I began telling her things, bragging I guess, like my system for selling houses. “I lose three listings out of ten,” I explained to her, “from being so tough, and as some say, so dictatorial. But — the other seven I sell fast. And what makes me so objectionable? I won’t list a house unless the owner agrees to accept a reasonable price. That’s the trouble selling houses, you list it and list it and advertise it on Sundays, for months, simply because of a dream price they think they can get, just by holding out. I jar them loose from that dream. I tell them: ‘Come off it! I know what your house will bring — it’s my business to know and I do. But if you don’t believe me, put an appraiser on it, put your own appraiser on it, and what he comes up with I’ll accept. I’m an appraiser myself, but if he says I’m nuts okay — find yourself another agent.’ As a rule they listen to me, but three out of ten don’t, and I lose ’em. But the ones I don’t lose are making me the most successful broker in Hyattsville.”

“I always heard you were.”

“Kiss your famous husband.”

And finally, the second night, when she was lying close in my arms, I told her about the Dream. She listened as I lined it out: “The whole farm, Jane Sibert’s sixty seven acres, I mean to chop into one-acre lots, big places, estates, and write it into the deed, that I approve exterior plans. It’s how you do, in an exclusive development, to make sure it doesn’t run down, that pikers don’t build on the cheap — it’s how they do in Malibu Beach, Williamsburg, and all places that really have class. And I’ll approve nothing but Southern mansions, with oaks, elms, gum, and magnolias. And that house that Jane Sibert lives in, I’ll use it for demonstration, first remodeling, to make it the most Southern mansion of all. I’ll peel off that front porch, put a neat little entrance in, and an annex right and left, a rec room and a garage, and — lo and behold — it’s Southern something to look at. And that mudhole she calls a drive, that circular thing out front, what am I doing with that? I’m dozing the mud out first, then lining it with bricks — putting brick borders down, inside and outside the loop, and painting them with whitewash. Then, between the two rows of brick I’m filling with oyster shells.

“Everyone’s forgotten about them, all they know now is blacktops. But oyster shells are cheaper — there’s a place in Washington that sells them, a restaurant on Maine Avenue with a tremendous pile out back — and they’re prettier. They’re snow white, and they look like Dixie! And in the middle, in the circle that runs around, I’m putting a rose garden in — and then I’ll guarantee you, I’ll have something they’ll come to see.”

“...A rose garden? Why?”

“It’s the Dixie flower, that’s why. They have them all over the South — even in Mexico. With the roses I’ll put across the idea that these are the Dixie Estates!”

“I wouldn’t plant ’em, no such.”

“...What wouldn’t you plant, then?”

“Oh I wish I was in the land of... roses?”

“I see what you mean, cotton.”

“Gramie, did you ever see cotton growing?”

“I can’t say I have, no.”

“I have, and it’s beautiful. One summer we went on a trip, my mother and I, to visit her sister, Aunt Sue, who lives in New Orleans. But we drove by way of Paducah, where my father’s sister lives, Aunt Annabelle. From Paducah we drove south, along the Mississippi, and all the way down we saw cotton, the prettiest growing thing you ever saw in your life — the leaves are so green, the rows are so even. It was six inches high in Kentucky, ten inches in Tennessee, a foot in Mississippi, and bush-height in Louisiana. But in Louisiana we saw the flowers, big, creamy white ones, that turn red when the sun goes down. Did you know that, Gramie? The second day they’re red. But they weren’t all.

“Driving back in the early fall we saw the real show. The bushes still had their leaves, but in place of flowers there were bolls, bolls of real cotton, the softest, warmest things you ever saw, just like little bunnies. And they’re pure white, the same color as your shells. And wouldn’t that be a sight, Gramie, for the Dixie moon to shine on! In the Indian summer, with the shells shining like snow, the cotton bolls shining like silver, and all of it shining like Dixie. And wouldn’t that advertise it! And—”

“It’s in, it’s an inspiration!”

“And I thought it up? I’m the one?”

“You, beautiful you!”

“And I’m kind of a help to you?”

“You’re the best asset I have!”

We lay a long time, inhaling each other, dreaming of moonlight and cotton. And then: “Gramie, why did she do that?”

“Why did who do what?”

“Mrs. Sibert? Why did she put you in her will?”

“I thought I told you: She likes me, and she doesn’t have anyone else. And, I kick in with money.”

“What will she think about me?”

“She’ll love you, as everyone does.”

“Who’s everyone? Who do you know that loves me?”

“...I know no reason they wouldn’t.”

“She could have one, though. She could love you.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly. But maybe she is.”

“I’m getting dizzy. In what way would she be silly?”

“About you — I already said.”

“I can’t imagine such a thing.”

“I can, easy as pie.”