Taltos by Anne Rice Page B

in the last four months,” said Mona.
    “You got it, that’s right, now how did you know that? Well, you’re some strange kid, aren’t you now? And I thought you were one of those uptown girls, with that ribbon in your hair, you know, that you always wore, and going to Sacred Heart, you know? And I figured you wouldn’t even talk to me.”
    A little pain had flared in Mona at that moment, pain and pity for this girl, for anybody who felt that cast out, that snubbed. Mona had never in her life suffered that lack of confidence. And this girl was interesting, putting it all together on her own, with far less nuts and bolts than Mona had.
    “Hold it, please, darlings, let’s not talk Wall Street,” said Beatrice. “Mary Jane, how is Granny? You haven’t told us a word. And it’s four o’clock, and you have to leave soon if you’re going to drive all the way back—”
    “Oh, Granny’s fine, Aunt Beatrice,” said Mary Jane, but she had been looking straight at Mona. “Now, you know what happened to Granny after Mama came and got me and took me away to Los Angeles? I was six years old then, you know. Did you hear this story?”
    “Yeah,” said Mona.
    Everybody had. Beatrice was still embarrassed about it. Celia stared at the girl as though she were a giant mosquito. Only Michael seemed uninformed.
    What had happened was this: Mary Jane’s grandmother, Dolly Jean Mayfair, had been slapped in the parish home after her daughter left with six-year-old Mary Jane. Dolly Jean was supposed to have died last year and been buried in the family tomb. And the funeral had been a big affair, only because when somebody called New Orleans, all the Mayfairs drove out there to Napoleonville, and beat their chests in grief and regret that they had let this old woman, poor Dolly Jean, die in a parish home. Most of them had never heard of her.
    Indeed, none of them had really known Dolly Jean. Or at least they had not known her as an old lady. Lauren and Celia had seen her many times when they were all little girls, of course.
    Ancient Evelyn had known Dolly Jean, but Ancient Evelyn had never left Amelia Street to ride to a country funeral, and no one had even thought of asking her about it.
    Well, when Mary Jane hit town a year ago, and heard the story of her grandmother dying and being buried, she’d scoffed at it, even laughing in Bea’s face.
    “Hell, she’s not dead,” Mary Jane had said. “She came to me in a dream and said, ‘Mary Jane, come get me. I want to go home.’ Now I’m going back to Napoleonville, and you have to tell me where that parish home is.”
    For Michael’s benefit, she had now repeated the entire tale, and the look of astonishment on Michael’s face was becoming unintentionally comic.
    “How come Dolly Jean didn’t tell you in the dream where the home was?” Mona had asked.
    Beatrice had shot her a disapproving look.
    “Well, she didn’t, that’s a fact. And that’s a good point,too. I have a whole theory about apparitions and why they, you know, get so mixed up.”
    “We all do,” said Mona.
    “Mona, tone it down,” said Michael.
    Just as if I’m his daughter now, thought Mona indignantly. And he still hasn’t taken his eyes off Mary Jane. But it had been said affectionately.
    “Honey, what happened?” Michael had pushed.
    “Well, an old lady like that,” Mary Jane had resumed, “she doesn’t always know where she is, even in a dream, but she knew where she was from! This is exactly what happened. I walked into the door of that old folks’ home, and there, slap-bang in the middle of the recreation room, or whatever they called it, was my grandmother and she looked up at me, right at me, and after all those years she said, ‘Where you been, Mary Jane? Take me home,
chère
, I’m tired of waiting.’ ”
    They had buried the wrong person from the old folks’ home.
    The real Granny Dolly Jean Mayfair had been alive, receiving but never laying eyes upon a welfare check every