Lee made a move to take the baby. Marguerite’s red lips peeled back from her teeth in what could have been a grin, but only if you wanted to be charitable. It looked more like a snarl to me. It must have to her son, too, because he stepped back. Marina was biting her lip, her eyes wide with dismay.
Marguerite marched back and forth across the threadbare green carpet, ignoring June’s increasingly distressed wails just as she had ignored Lee’s anger. Was she actually
Marina was looking at her over the top of the baby’s head, her pretty eyes wide. Marguerite rolled her own, either in impatience or outright disgust, and put her face down to Marina’s. The Leaning Lamp of Pisa was turned on, and the light skated across the lenses of Marguerite’s cat’s-eye glasses.
“Skeeny,” Marina said doubtfully. Safe in her mother’s arms, June’s weeping was winding down to watery hiccups.
“Yes!” Marguerite said. Then she whirled to Lee. “Fix that step!”
With that she left, only pausing to put a large smack on her granddaughter’s head. When she walked back toward the bus stop, she was smiling. She looked younger.
On the morning after Marguerite brought the playhouse, I was up at six. I went to the drawn drapes and peeked out through the crack without even thinking about it — spying on the house across the street had become a habit. Marina was sitting in one of the lawn chairs, smoking a cigarette. She was wearing pink rayon pajamas that were far too big for her. She had a new black eye, and there were spots of blood on the pajama shirt. She smoked slowly, inhaling deeply and staring out at nothing.
After awhile she went back inside and made breakfast. Pretty soon Lee came out and ate it. He didn’t look at her. He read a book.
Like de Mohrenschildt, Gregory was a Russian expat in the petroleum biz. He was originally from Siberia, and taught Russian one night a week at the Fort Worth Library. Lee discovered this and called for an appointment to ask if he, Lee, could possibly get work as a translator. Gregory gave him a test and found his Russian “passable.” What Gregory was really interested in — what
Lee didn’t get the job; Gregory hired Marina instead — to give his son Paul Russian lessons. It was money the Oswalds desperately needed. It was also something else for Lee to resent. She was tutoring a rich kid twice a week while he was stuck putting together screen doors.
The morning I observed Marina smoking on the porch, Paul Gregory, good-looking and about Marina’s age, pulled up in a brand-new Buick. He knocked, and Marina — wearing heavy makeup that made me think of Bobbi Jill — opened the door. Either mindful of Lee’s possessiveness or because of rules of propriety she had learned back home, she gave him his lesson on the porch. It lasted an hour and a half. June lay between them on her blanket, and when she cried, the two of them took turns holding her. It was a nice little scene, although Mr. Oswald would probably not have thought so.
