Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(128)
Author: Anne Rice

“Whoa!” she said, staring down at him and then marching towards him, bare feet on the bare wood, though Mary Jane tried to stop her.

“Now you go back and sit down,” said Mary Jane, “the lights will be on in a jiffy.”

“You’re a man,” said the tall young woman, who was really a girl, no older than the pint-sized mother in the bed, or Mary Jane herself. She stood right in front of the doctor, scowling at him with red eyebrows, her green eyes bigger than those of the little one upstairs, with big curling lashes. “You are a man, aren’t you?”

“I told you, this is the doctor,” said Mary Jane, “come to fill out the birth certificate for the baby. Now, Dr. Jack, this is Morrigan, this is the baby’s aunt, now Morrigan, this is Dr. Jack, sit down now, Morrigan! Let this doctor get about his business. Let’s go, Doctor.”

“Don’t get so theatrical, Mary Jane,” declared the beanpole girl, with a great spreading smile. She rubbed her long, silky-looking white hands together. Her voice sounded exactly like that of the little mother upstairs. Same well-bred voice. “You have to forgive me, Dr. Jack, my manners aren’t what they should be yet, I’m still a little rough all over at the edges, trying to ingest a little more information, perhaps, than God ever intended for anyone of my ilk, but then we have so many different problems which we have to solve, for example, now that we have the birth certificate, we do have that, do we not, Mary Jane, that is what you were trying to make plain to me when I so rudely interrupted you, was it not, what about the baptism of this baby, for if memory serves me right, the legacy makes quite a point of the matter that the baby must be baptized Catholic. Indeed, it seems to me that in some of these documents which I’ve just accessed and only skimmed, that baptism is a more important point actually than legal registration.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Dr. Jack. “And where in God’s name did they vaccinate you, RCA Victor?”

She let out a pretty peal of laughter, clapping both of her hands together, very loudly, her red hair rippling and shaking out from her shoulders as she shook her head.

“Doctor, what are you talking about!” she said. “How old are you? You’re a fairly good-sized man, aren’t you, let me see, I estimate you are sixty-seven years old, am I right? May I see your glasses?”

She snatched them off his nose before he could protest, peering through them into his face. He was flabbergasted; he was also sixty-eight. She became a fragrant blur before his naked eyes.

“Oh, now this is major, really, look at this,” she said. And quickly put the glasses back on the bridge of his nose with perfect aim, flaring into detail again, with plump little cheeks and a cupid’s bow of a mouth just about as perfect as he’d ever seen. “Yes, it makes everything just a fraction bigger, doesn’t it, and to think this is but one of the more common everyday inventions I’m likely to encounter within the first few hours of life, eyeglasses, spectacles, am I correct? Eyeglasses, microwave oven, clip-on earrings, telephone, NEC MultiSync 5D computer monitor. It would seem to me that later on, at a time of reflection on all that’s taken place, one ought to be able to discern a certain poetry in the list of those objects which were encountered first, especially if we are right that nothing in life is purely random, that things only have the appearance from different vantage points of being random and that ultimately as we better calibrate all our tools of observation, we’ll come to understand that even the inventions encountered on two stories of an abandoned and distressed house, do cluster together to form a statement about the occupants that is far more profound than anyone would suppose at first thought. What do you think!”

Now it was his turn to let out the peal of laughter. He slapped his leg. “Honey, I don’t know what I think about that, but I sure do like the style with which you say it!” he declared. “What did you say your name was, you’re the one that baby’s named after, Morrigan, don’t tell me you’re a Mayfair, too.”

“Oh yes, sir, absolutely, Morrigan Mayfair!” she said, throwing up her arms like a cheerleader.

There was a glimmer, then a faint purring sound, and on came the lights, and the computer behind them in the room began to make its grinding, winding, start-up noises.

“Ooops, there we go!” she said, red hair flying about her shoulders. “Back on line with Mayfair and Mayfair, until such time as Mother Nature sees fit to humble all of us, regardless of how well we are equipped, configured, programmed, and installed. In other words, until lightning strikes again!”

She dashed to the chair before the desk, took up her place before the screen, and began typing again, just as if she’d completely forgotten he was standing there.

Granny shouted from upstairs, “Mary Jane, go on, this baby’s hungry!”

Mary Jane pulled on his sleeve.

“Now wait just a minute,” he said. But he had lost the amazing young woman, totally and completely, he realized that, just as he realized that she was purely naked under the white shirt, and that the light of her gooseneck lamp was shining right on her breast and her flat belly and her naked thighs. Didn’t look like she had any panties on, either. And those long bare feet, what big bare feet. Was it safe to be typing on a computer in a lightning storm in your bare feet? Her red hair just flooded down to the seat of the chair.

Granny shouted from above.

“Mary Jane, you got to get this baby back by five o’clock!”

“I’m going, I’m going, Dr. Jack, come on!”

“ ’Bye there, Dr. Jack!” shouted the beanpole beauty, suddenly waving at him with her right hand, which was at the end of an amazingly long arm, without even taking her eyes off the computer.

Mary Jane rushed past him and jumped in the boat. “You coming or not?” she said. “I’m pulling out, I got things to do, you want to be stuck here?”

“Get that baby where by five o’clock?” he demanded, coming to his senses, and thinking about what that old woman had just said. “You’re not taking that baby out again to be baptized!”

“Hurry up, Mary Jane!”

“Anchors aweigh!” Mary Jane screamed, pushing the pole at the steps.

“Wait a minute!”

He took the leap, splashing into the pirogue as it rocked against the balusters and then the wall. “All right, all right. Just slow down, will you? Get me to the landing without dumping me into the swamp, would you do that, please?”