A Peach of a Pair (2 page)

S
ue dressed me in a mismatched skirt and blouse and put rouge on my cheeks, trying to make me look like I hadn’t lost my mind right along with my heart. She held her mouth open, concentrating as she put her lipstick on me, a color that clashed with my auburn hair. Normally, I would have said something about her unfortunate color choices, in a very kind way. Not like the mean girls who made fun of her for being colorblind. Sue made the universal sign for me to blot, and I did. I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care.

“I’m not going,” I whined and plopped back down on the bed I hadn’t moved from since that awful letter came four days ago.

Every day since, Mother has called the pay phone just down the hall from my room. Sue told whoever answered it that I was indisposed. Too many phone calls from meddling parents had always bound us all together, the mean girls with the sweet girls, the plain with the fancy, and me, the ’Bama belle. Syrupy-sweet lies rolled off of our tongues, and we never thought twice.

Normally, I’d worry about the lies, the threat of my mother coming all the way from Satsuma to tan my hide, but I didn’t care. About anything.

“Okay. So, you’re going to go into Dean Kerrigan’s office and you’re going to tell her?”

Sue had gone over this a million times since I was summoned for this appointment, since I missed my senior recital Friday night. She waited for me to fill in the blank.

“I’ve had the flu.” She nodded, waiting for the rest of the lie. “And I didn’t go to the infirmary because—”

“Because you didn’t want to get anybody sick.” She smiled at me like I was one of her soon-to-be first-grade students. “And since I—I mean since
Sue
had already had the flu . . .”

My bed covers were a rumpled mess and were calling to me. Sleep was the only cure for my broken heart. In my dreams, Sissy never came to the orange grove the night Brooks proposed. He and I went all the way so many times, our bodies were a blur. And there was no Sissy. She didn’t exist. Nothing existed, just me and Brooks. Until I woke up.

“Look at me, Nettie. Focus.” Sue turned my face to hers. I loved her to bits for caring so much, for loving me so much, but right now I would have knocked her senseless and crawled back under the covers if I thought Dean Kerrigan wouldn’t send someone to my room to fetch me. Knowing the dean, she would come herself.

“Since my roommate already had the flu,” I whispered.

“There. We’re going to be a little late, but you look perfect,” Sue said. “And don’t forget to say you’re sorry.
At least ten times
. Just sprinkle them into the conversation so that you can graduate, Nettie. I want you to graduate, and I know deep down you want that too.”

No, I just wanted to go to bed. Forever.

The whole way to the dean of students’ office, Sue held my hand. When we entered the administration building, I could barely hear someone in the music building next door practicing on one of the concert Steinway grand pianos. The beginning strains of Chopin’s Nocturne Opus 48 Number 1 in C minor, the haunting expression of grief that could not be contained with red bricks and mortar.

I’d wept that first day I touched those keys. After wearing out a secondhand no-name upright back home, sitting down on the sleek black bench and touching the ivory keys had been surreal. An equal mix of giddy and awe. The way Brooks always made me feel.

I turned around to walk in the opposite direction, but Sue pulled me back. “Come on, Nettie. Don’t throw away the last four years. Not for a man. Not for anyone.”

But Brooks had thrown away the last ten like they were nothing. Like I was nothing. Dean Kerrigan opened her office door, most likely to come look for me. She nodded at Sue to leave, and without a word, I walked into her office.

She closed the door behind me. “Please, sit, Nettie.” She motioned to the small couch. She sat down beside me, took my hands in hers, and smiled. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry.”
How many times did Sue say I should tell her?
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
But I was not at all sorry.
“Flu. I’m sorry. The flu, I had—”

“A girl like you doesn’t miss her senior recital because of the flu, Nettie. Talk to me so we can figure out how to make this right, so you can graduate. You’ve worked so hard.”

“I had the flu, I—” The last word dissolved into a whine that set my chest heaving. Tears streamed down the thick makeup Sue plastered on my face to make me look normal, perky.

Dean Kerrigan wrapped her arms around me. “That’s it, dear; let it out.” She smelled like my mother, like vanilla and rose water, or maybe I just wanted Dean Kerrigan to smell like her. To be her.

She always kept a stack of handkerchiefs on her desk in a little wicker basket for just such occasions. After I got over being a silly freshman, I always felt more like a peer to my professors than a student, even to the dean herself. Many times I’d smiled at that basket, sure I’d never need its contents to make a tearful plea or confession to Harriet Kerrigan, and now, I was on my third handkerchief.

“All right,” she said gently. “That’s enough, Nettie. You only get thirty minutes of my time to feel sorry for yourself, my dear.” My breath stuttered when I laughed, still unable to look at her. She crooked a finger and tilted my face up to meet her gaze. My chin quivered, the tears building again. “No more tears now; we’re going to work this out.”

Dean Kerrigan’s amber eyes were warm and full of love for me, for every girl at the college. Everyone adored her because she cared so deeply.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“I want you to graduate on time,” she said. I shook my head violently. “You might not feel like it at this very moment, Nettie, but I know you want that too.”

“But I don’t.” If ten years with Brooks meant nothing, graduation meant nothing. “I know I’m supposed to make an excuse for missing the recital, but I’m not going to do that.”

“I wish you would.” She smiled. “Just a tiny excuse to show me you care.”

“I want to withdraw from the college.” I’d never quit anything in my life, but suddenly it seemed like a stupendous idea.

“Nettie. I’ve watched you play, the way you become the music. You’re good enough to be much more than a music teacher if you wanted.” Any other time, I would have basked in her accolades and played them off in an
aw shucks
kind of way that would only bring more. But I didn’t respond at all. “What happened to make you give up on your dreams?”

“It doesn’t matter what happened; I need to leave.”

“To go home?”

“No.” Another revelation. I didn’t ever want to go home.

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know.” But I refused to go home and watch Sissy’s belly grow with Brooks’s baby, see them together at mandatory family dinners.

“You realize if you’re not a student, you’ll have to leave the campus, don’t you?” she asked, like that would make me come to my senses.

The college had been my home for the past four years, many of the girls my sisters. I had twenty-seven dollars and a bus ticket to my name, nothing to pawn and nowhere to go. “Of course.”

“You’re a Columbia College girl, Nettie. That means something, and I won’t let you throw it all away.” She rose and went to her desk, a beautiful piece that was not like the boxy stuffy ones the other professors had. She put on a pair of blue horn-rimmed glasses, took three yellow forms out of her desk drawer, and placed carbons between the pages. “You’re taking a temporary leave of absence,” she said as she wrote, “due to a family matter. The busybodies over at the registrar’s office will want to know what that is, but I won’t tell them, and neither will you. This will make them think the worst, but let them. I
want you back in September to finish your degree, Nettie. That’s more than enough time to work out whatever has you running scared.”

“Thank you; I’ll be back.” While I felt terrible about Sue asking me to lie, there I was lying to a woman I loved and respected.

She pulled the carbons out, handed one of the forms to me, and put the other two in her Out basket. “It breaks my heart that you’re leaving. But take some time to mend your heart and come back. Not for your parents or for me; do it for yourself, Nettie.”

E
mily pressed the jelly glass against the door and strained to listen, but Lurleen’s voice was so feeble, Emily couldn’t make out what she was saying. But she could hear that nitwit doctor’s voice loud and clear.

“Miss Lurleen, things are going to get more difficult, and Miss Emily can’t take care of you by herself,” Doctor Remmy Wilkes said like
Emily
was the difficult one
.
“You all are going to need some live-in help, and, no offense, ma’am, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody around here to take the job.

“Yes ma’am,” the doctor said. “I do intend to tell Miss Emily everything. Yes, ma’am, I believe it’s for the best. But for now, I want you to rest as much as you can. I’ll come around to check on you tomorrow.”

Emily heard him putting his things in his bag and hurried toward the living room but didn’t make it to her chair before the doctor opened
Lurleen’s door. She wanted to wipe that look right off of his young face as he closed the door so quietly, like her beloved sister was already dead.

Shoot, Emily remembered changing this man’s diapers in the church nursery, and here he was doctoring her and Lurleen. Well, if the Eldridge sisters weren’t already as old as dirt, that made them so. And the doctor, all prematurely gray at his temples; that didn’t make Emily feel any younger as he walked down the hall to tell her something he thought she didn’t already know about her own sister.

Emily gave him a hard look to remind him that she
knew
more than he could ever hope to,
and
she never forgot anything. Yes, she would remember this one all right till the day she died. Little Remmy Foster Wilkes Junior, long before he became Dr. Remmy Wilkes. Him and his knack for playing innocent while his friends got punished for all sorts of tomfoolery.

Why, he and Pete Mason put three of the biggest bullfrogs in Kershaw County in the baptismal font and flat ruined that poor Mixon baby’s baptism. Had a liking for reptiles of all sorts. Cleared the church one communion Sunday with a shoebox full of garter snakes, and let poor old Pete and that little Belcher boy shoulder the blame. Yes, Emily never forgot a thing and he knew it.
Oh, and another thing, he was not a good baby.

“Miss Eldridge,” his voice sounded like an undertaker’s. Gave her the chills.

Emily straightened herself and smoothed the front of the new housedress she bought at Karesh’s Fashion Shop for 25 percent off. A Kleenex fell out of the sleeve of her sweater. She always kept one stuffed there because she was forever forgetting to check her pockets. What a mess a wad of tissue made going through the wash, little bits of paper all over creation.
My Lord
.

“Miss Eldridge,” he said, and stooped over to pick up her tissue at the same time Emily did and they almost knocked heads. “I need to talk to you about Miss Lurleen’s condition. Why don’t we sit down over here.” He motioned to the settee.

The last time a man asked Emily to sit down on the settee was three years from the day that she retired from the Kershaw County school system. Couldn’t believe she ended up buying an entire set of
World Book Encyclopedias
she had no use for. The fool print in those books was so small, they should come with a reading glass.

Emily ignored Remmy and sat down on the wingback chair instead. He shrugged, which was
so
rude, and then joined her, sitting in Lurleen’s chair. Emily kept her eyes locked on his to make sure he knew she didn’t want to sit and listen to him. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder like he was trying to figure out how to say whatever he thought was so
g.d.
important.

“Miss Emily, Miss Lurleen’s heart condition is getting worse, a lot worse. She needs to go to the hospital, but she refuses. Says she wants to die at home, and, to be honest, I don’t think she’s going to live much longer.”

“
You think my sister is gonna die?
” Oh, the restraint it took not to smack this one. “Lurleen cheats death like a cat, always has.” So mad, she could spit, Emily shoved his hand off of her shoulder and looked the little pissant straight in the eye. “
You are wrong
.”

Before this little fellow was a gleam in his grandma’s eye, Lurleen had a bad case of scarlet fever, and her barely six, no, nine. They said she was going to die then, and she didn’t. The second time was when she fell off the top of the carriage house trying to walk the peak of the roofline on a dare from their baby brother, Teddy, God love him. And the third time, Lurleen was trying to learn how to
drive that fool Oldsmobile. Closed her eyes every time one of those big old trucks whizzed by, and ran that contraption right off the road and into the ditch. Took out a row of mailboxes on more than one occasion. Never did learn how to drive, but then neither did Emily.

Some dust on the piano caught Emily’s eye. Lurleen was always in charge of dusting, although she could never dust worth a lick. Emily took the tissue out of her sleeve and got up off the chair. It was a nice firm one, not like the chairs they made these days that were so soft, you had to struggle to get up. She swiped at the spots Lurleen would have gotten if she wasn’t feeling so poorly, but you know how a tissue is, seems like those fool things are made of dust. Only a good dust rag would fix that ugly mess.

“Miss Emily,” he said as she tottered off toward the kitchen to get the rag. “I wish you’d sit down so we can discuss this. If you can talk her into going to the hospital, I can prolong her life for a while, although I can’t say how long. But what I am most concerned about is you. You’re going to have to face the fact that Miss Lurleen is going to die, and make some adjustments.”

“Young man,
be ashamed of yourself
. Why I wiped your b-u-t-t when you were just a little thing and here you are, coming in
my house
, presuming to tell me
you
know Sister better than me? Don’t you think
I’d
know if Lurleen was going to pass?

“Miss Eldridge.”

Oh, there he goes, trying to smooth things over like he had
not
just insulted her beyond all mortal bounds. Next, he’d try to humor her.
Lord, have mercy on my soul, but I despise that in a man.

“I know you’ve known me since I was born, and it’s hard to hear something like this from somebody who was fortunate enough to have you as a church nursery worker and sixth-grade Sunday school
teacher. But I’m certain that Miss Lurleen’s heart is about to give out on her. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can help her get her affairs in order.”

“Why, I
never
. What kind of doctor are you anyway? Just giving up on Sister like that. Didn’t you take some sort of oath?”

He completely ignored the question, opened his black leather bag, and dug around until he found a pen and a pad. “Now, I’m going to give Miss Lurleen a prescription for some pills.”

“
Don’t you ignore me, Remmy Foster. I’ll call your mother.
”

“Miss Emily, my mother and my father are deceased as you well know.” He let out a tired sigh. Of course Emily did know about his parents, everyone did. That accident, the whole town gushing about Remmy taking over his father’s practice so dutifully. But Emily could always read this one; she knew he wanted to be elsewhere and, at the moment, Emily wished he were anywhere but here.

“Miss Eldridge, I really am doing the best I can, and that is to say the best that modern medicine can do. These pills will make Miss Lurleen more comfortable, but
they will not cure her
.”

“Well then what in the name of Mary and Moses would she take the fool things for? I declare, I just don’t know about you doctors these days, passing out God knows what kinds of drugs, and
nobody’s
getting any better from them.
Especially
Lurleen.”

He stood and looked at her like he was really going to make Emily believe all of his foolishness. “You’re going to need some help to take care of her. Live-in help. Miss Lurleen agrees, and I told her I’d have my receptionist put out some feelers, maybe place an ad for y’all in the newspaper. Miss Lurleen asked me to help screen them, and I’m happy to do so if that would make things easier on you or make you feel better. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you all of this, Miss Emily. Really, I am.”

Well he ought to be, for saying such things. Emily heard Sister calling her. He picked up his bag and said he was sorry again. Like
that
meant something. Why, Emily had a good mind to call his mother anyway,
g damn it. Forgive me, Jesus.

Emily never used to swear, unless it was absolutely necessary, especially when she worked as a teacher. She was afraid that the words would become second nature and when one of her students started sassing off, she’d say something she’d regret. Something that might get her fired. But lately, Emily cursed, a lot and for good reason. Especially when that so-called doctor was about.

But she believed if God really thought long and hard about her situation, He’d agree wholeheartedly that swearing was completely called for under the circumstances, if not a necessity. And He probably appreciated the fact that the swearing was mostly in her head.

“See yourself out, Remmy. You’re doctoring is as worthless as rubber lips on a woodpecker.”

Even without the half smile that played at his lips, he was a handsome man, for a pissant. Why, if Emily were his age, he definitely would have turned her head. When she was a young girl, Emily was quite the looker. All she had to do was snap her fingers, and she’d have a dozen boys begging to be her beau. She touched her hair like she was twenty-one instead of seventy-one. She didn’t feel
that
old, but sometimes, when she walked by a mirror, she was flabbergasted to see the wrinkled face looking back at her. Most days, she didn’t feel a minute over twenty back when she was the belle of the ball, and her mother had to beat her suitors away with a peach tree switch.

“Emily, for goodness’ sake. Where are you?” Lurleen called as the door closed behind Dr. Remmy Foster Wilkes.
Bah.

“Coming,” Emily yelled, because the old girl’s hearing was not
what it used to be. She tucked that prescription into her pocket and then remembered the way her mind slips when she does the wash. She took it out and stuffed it up her sleeve along with a clean tissue.

“Hungry?” Emily looked in the refrigerator to see what she could fix for lunch.

“Just a little bite, maybe something sweet,” Sister hollered. Oh, yes, she was quite feeble until it was
sugar time
.

Emily warmed up some squash and onions from dinner last night on the stovetop along with a fried pork chop from the day before. She set a piece of loaf bread on the plate and a dab of tapioca pudding for Lurleen’s ever-loving sweet tooth and started to the bedroom. But then she remembered the tea, and the fact that she poured the last glass for that
g.d.
doctor.

Hurrying back to the kitchen, she put two cups of sugar in the pitcher, not three like Lurleen did, and put the kettle on. She sat down at the kitchen table and looked over an old magazine and waited for the pot to call. The old girl must have dozed off, because she was quiet, for a change. But Emily couldn’t read a thing without her glasses.

They were not in the fruit bowl where she always kept them. Had Lurleen gotten out of bed during the night and straightened up? Emily absolutely hated it when she did, because Lurleen could not put one
g.d.
thing back where it belonged.

The kettle let out an earsplitting whistle. Emily let it go on for a little to wake the old girl up. A few seconds later, Lurleen hollered for her dinner.

“You’re not some kind of invalid, Sister. Get out of the bed.” Emily rinsed out her mother’s good crystal tea pitcher. “Why I’m fixing and doing for you when you can fix and do for yourself is
beyond understanding. And having live-in help? Well, if you’re not dying, which you certainly are not, you’ve lost your mind.”

“Emily, I’m too sick to argue. Please. I’m hungry,” she huffed. Lately, Sister was really good at sounding weak and pathetic. Why, she’d never been either of those in her life.

“No. You’re just spoiled,” Emily shot back, but not loud enough to be heard. Completely rotten from all those times everybody made over her because they thought Lurleen was going to die.

“She’s too mean to die,” Daddy had said, while at the same time slipping her a little sack of candy from Zemp’s Drug Store.

Truly, she was not mean, but that was what Daddy always said when any of his children got hurt and started to whine, even Teddy. Like the time Tilara Jones’s old milk cow stepped on Emily’s foot and broke it. The pain was so great, Emily cried and cried and begged Jesus to take her home. When Daddy came to pick her up from the Joneses’ place, he just laughed and told Emily she was too mean to die.

Emily poured the hot tea in the pitcher and stirred the sugar until it dissolved. Lurleen always let it sit for a while, which just turned it into a syrupy mess. She said lemons cut the syrup, but they don’t. How Lurleen could drink it that way was a great wonder. It was
no
t good tea.

With the glass and dinner plate on the tray, Emily headed down the hall, even though Lurleen could come out here and sit and eat with Emily if she had a mind to. But she took to bed after church, three weeks ago Sunday. Emily didn’t let on that she knew Lurleen was okay. She just played along and fussed over her. Sister loved that almost as much as her syrupy tea.