A Peach of a Pair (22 page)

M
y hands were shaking. After the first few words, I couldn’t speak.

“She’s crying sir, just gave the number and broke right down,” the operator said, “so I’m guessing this is a collect call.”

“Nettie? Nettie?”

“Sir, do you accept the charges.”

“Yes,” Remmy barked. “Nettie, honey, talk to me.”

Miss Lurleen had cried herself to sleep by the time I left the room and ran to the nearest pay phone. I’m not sure how long he listened to me cry, consoling me. Swearing because he couldn’t hold me.

“Nettie, honey, I’ll get there as quick as I can. Where are you?”

“Bi—loxi.” I hiccupped.

“Goddamn it. I can’t hang up the phone, not with you like this, but I want to be there with you.” I could hear desk drawers opening
and closing and then pages rustling. “I’m looking at the atlas. I can drive there, be there in maybe fourteen hours. Hell, that’s too long. I can drive to Augusta and fly to Mobile for sure. Maybe they have a flight to Biloxi; if they don’t, I can rent a car or take a taxi. Soon as I get to you, honey, we’ll all fly home together. You and me. Miss Lurleen. God, Nettie, please don’t cry.”

I’m not sure if it was sheer exhaustion or the insanity of watching someone I’d grown to love die right in front of me, but I laughed at the thought of getting Miss Lurleen on an airplane. “That’s such a sweet sound, honey,” Remmy said. “God, I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I should be with you, but for the life of me, I can’t hang up this damn phone and leave you alone.”

“I’m okay,” I lied. “But I’d better go. Miss Lurleen might wake up, and I don’t want her to be alone.”

“Miss Emily died?” Remmy asked incredulously.

“They said she had a stroke.”

“How’s Miss Lurleen?”

“They took her blood pressure and gave her something to help her sleep, but she fought it; I really need to go in case she wakes up.”

“Go be with her, and I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”

I nodded my head, but the three of us began this journey together; it was only fitting that Miss Lurleen, Miss Emily, and I come home together. Besides, Remmy riding in on a white horse was all well and good, but I knew I needed to find my own happiness before I fell into his arms.

“Don’t come.”

“Nettie—”

“I’m going to be fine, Remmy. Miss Lurleen and I have each other.”

“Honey, I just want to be with you.”

“And I want that too. I do. Just not now. I’ll see you when we get to Columbia.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

Snippets of the last few days with the sisters raced through my mind, blurring with images of my own sister. “Right now, I’m not sure of many things, but I know I need to finish what I started, and I’m sure of you, Remmy. I’m sure of you.”

“You really know how to make a guy fall for you, Nettie Gilbert.” He sounded happy. Relieved. I swiped my tears away and laughed too because I was already gone.

•   •   •

I
awoke with a start at three a.m. when Miss Lurleen sat up wailing, sobbing, gasping for breath. The loss was so deep and so fresh, if the pain had been constant, it would have taken her life. But it came in waves of laughing and crying and stories. Pieces of her and her sister’s life she shared with me.

“You’re a good friend to me, Nettie. To Sister,” she sighed after she rode the last wave of grief down.

“I loved her,” I laughed, swiping at my tears. “She didn’t want me to, but I did.”

“I love you, sweet girl, and because I’m very old, I have a certain license to say any old thing I want. And, whether you want to or not, you’re obligated to hear me out.”

“Of course. You can say anything to me.”

“You might not like this very much, but again, I’m old and I’m right most all the time,” she chuckled and took my hand. “First of
all, you may call me Lurleen. All my friends do, and you can drop the
yes ma’am
and
no ma’am
as well. Secondly, I told you I didn’t speak to Emily for seven years.”

“Yes, Mis—” She raised her eyebrows. “Of course, Lurleen,” I said. My mother would have washed my mouth out for such a breach of etiquette.

“I have few regrets in my life, but that is the sorest one. I tried to make it up to Emily over the years, but nothing could ever truly repair the ugly scar my silence left. I have unsaid things I will take to my grave, things that Emily should have been told, and now she’s gone.” Lurleen’s voice trailed off. I put my arms around her and pressed her head into the curve of my neck. Not once since I’d met her had she ever worn any dusting powder or perfume, but she was wearing a hint of the Evening in Paris her sister had worn unsparingly.

She pulled away and swiped at her eyes. “I don’t want that for you, Nettie. I’ll go home with you if you like, or if you want to go home alone, I’ll take Emily on to Camden. But you must go to your sister, if not for yourself, for me.”

“She needs me,” I whispered. “I could feel it when we passed through Alabama; the feeling isn’t as strong, but it’s still there. She needs me.”

“Then go to her.” Lurleen held both of my hands in hers. “Forgive her.”

“I’m not sure I can.” It was easy to hold on to all of the sordid details. Forgiveness was complicated. The hardest work.

“No one’s asking you to agree with her, Nettie; you don’t even have to like her. But you must forgive her.” Lurleen smiled. “She’s your sister.”

•   •   •

W
e’d fallen asleep around seven or eight in the morning and slept until noon when we dressed to go make arrangements for Miss Emily’s body to be embalmed and shipped back to Camden. On the way to the funeral home, the cab went about four blocks down Main Street. “We’ll get out here,” Lurleen said.

“But the O’Keefe Funeral Home is over on Howard Avenue,” I said, following her out of the cab. She waited for me to take my place at her side, cupping her elbow, and nodded toward Learners’ Dress Shop. “Emily would want you in a stunning new dress when you see that bastard, and I believe I’ll get one too.”

“No, Lurleen—”

“No arguments, Nettie. We’re doing this for Emily, and that’s final.”

Almost an hour later, we emerged with two shopping bags with a dress for each of us, and a new pair of pumps for me. I hailed another cab, and the driver gave us a look when I told him where we were going. Still, the car rolled forward about fifty feet. He turned left and went maybe a hundred more feet and there we were in front of the funeral home, where Lurleen singlehandedly changed the casket industry in the interest of women everywhere, but particularly for her sister.

“Well, why can’t you get one in blue?” Miss Lurleen snapped.

“Madam, a Cannon casket is the best money can buy, which of course is what you asked for. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come in any color except hand-burnished mahogany.”

“Obviously an attempt to appeal to men. You ought to know that women prefer color, something that matches their favorite dress or
their eyes. Sister’s eyes were blue,” she huffed. “Can you at least paint the thing blue?”

“We don’t—I’m not sure we could—,” he stammered.

Lurleen took a pen and her checkbook out of her pocketbook and raised her eyebrows. “Well?” she snapped.

He looked at the checkbook and then at Lurleen. “I suppose we could, but it will cost extra.”

•   •   •

T
he hotel staff was very kind in light of Miss Emily’s untimely death. The manager sent a doctor to check on Lurleen. The staff stopped by our room several times bringing snacks, Cokes, sweet tea. When Lurleen asked the manager if he knew of a place we could rent a car to go to Satsuma overnight for a family matter, he didn’t ask any questions, just loaned us his.

It was definitely the quickest seventy-five miles I’d ever driven, although I wasn’t speeding. The small sign for my barely there town came into sight too soon. I was grateful to have Miss Lurleen riding shotgun. The terrors I’d felt passing through Alabama on the bus were nothing compared to what I felt now. Teeth chattering, I was pouring sweat, heart beating out of my chest.

When Lurleen put her hand on mine, I slowed, then stomped on the brake, making the truck behind me nearly rear-end us. He sat on his horn and zoomed past our car. “Breathe,” she said softly, but I couldn’t. What if Sissy had decided she was done with me like I had said I was done with her? What if my sister didn’t need me anymore? Didn’t love me anymore?

“We’ll sit here till you’re ready,” Lurleen said. “And you will be ready. You’re made of strong stuff, my dear.”

Much like the hills had melted into piedmonts and their gentle slopes into lowlands, the days had blurred since we left Camden. It was Thursday, just after six o’clock; Sissy would be home from work by now.

She’d gone to work right out of high school at the Alabama Farmers Cooperative office in Mobile as their lone secretary. She usually rode with the Blakeney girl who worked at a bank in Mobile. Sissy had been saving for a car for almost a year now; Papa wouldn’t let her buy one on time, though she could have if he’d signed the papers.

Now, her money would be pooled into her new life with Brooks. Her baby. That wouldn’t sit well at all given Sissy’s pride in her own paycheck, and why shouldn’t she be proud? She worked hard, did a good job, and yet the moment she told her boss she was expecting, he would likely fire her on the spot. Or maybe she hadn’t told her boss yet. Maybe she was ruminating, making herself sick over the whole fiasco.

I had always known everything that went on with Sissy, or I used to. Sissy loved her job, loved getting dressed up to go to work, to type memorandums, and answer phone calls. She’d been so proud when she’d landed the position on her own, without any help from Daddy or his friends. She’d gushed about how grown up she felt, how she didn’t see any reason why women couldn’t work as long as they wanted whether they had children or not. But if she wasn’t fired, she would have to quit her job long before the baby came. Brooks would see to it.

Whenever Brooks and I had talked about having a family, he’d been adamant that I would stay home from the minute the bun was in the oven until the kids weren’t school age anymore. I’d hoped he might change his mind since teaching was such a wonderful profession for a mother, what with the summers off. Of course teaching piano out of the house was fine by him. Sometimes he’d even hinted
he might give on the subject of my teaching, as long as it was at our children’s school.

But would Sissy be happy without her job? And why was Brooks so quick to make iron-fisted decisions that weren’t solely his to make?

“I’m ready.” I swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’m sure you are, dear. Let’s get a move on; I want to meet this sister of yours.” Her last words had a little bite to them.

When this whole mess started, I’d wanted nothing less than the people I loved, who also loved Sissy, to rise up and shame her, persecute her until her every thought was sorrowful for having betrayed me. But after having seen the Eldridge ire up close and personally, I didn’t want it directed at my baby sister.

I shifted in my seat to face Lurleen. Angry drivers honked and zipped past me. “I don’t know much about driving, dear, but I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules to sit in the middle of the highway like this with your blinker thingy on.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Sissy’s young,” I stammered.

“But old enough to know better,” Lurleen said, pulling on Miss Emily’s short white gloves like they were for boxing. Heaven help Sissy.

The flatlands of my homeplace had never been more beautiful. Miles of new satsumas dangling from the trees. Cotton fields and newly planted corn in between orchards. Tall stately pecan trees that seemed bigger and better on Alabama soil than anyplace in the South.

I turned onto the dirt road that split two satsuma groves. Four tiny houses came into view. A half dozen vehicles, mostly pickup trucks, were parked near the shared barn behind the houses. Daddy’s old truck that ran when it wanted to was under the shed alongside Uncle Doak’s new truck he bought every year, just to get a rise
out of Daddy. My cousin Griffin’s hand-me-down pickup from his father was there; a friendly dig from Doak that an eighteen-year-old was driving a better vehicle than my father. The big truck that took oranges and pecans, cotton and corn to market sat next to Mother’s car. Everyone was home.

We pulled up into the bare dirt space in the center of the four clapboard homes that looked like neat squares in the middle of the groves. Between Nana’s house and mine, the plates were set on the table Daddy had honed out of a massive oak tree that had blown over after a storm when I was six. There was a vase of sky blue hydrangeas in the center of the table, and Mother’s gardenia and rose bushes were showing off with their intoxicating fragrances. Twelve place settings were laid out perfectly, a stark contrast to the rustic table that could seat as many as thirty people and had.

I loved that table, always felt so special around it, with everyone I loved gathered there. I used to picture my own children added to the brood, listening to my father tell how God had provided the tree to make the table as surely as he’d provided the lamb for Abraham to sacrifice instead of sacrificing his own son, Isaac.

The screen door pushed open. Not recognizing the strange car, my mother had a cross look on her face as she wiped her glasses on a small towel. She slung the dishcloth over her shoulder and squinted hard. She could never see two feet in front of herself, but then she put her thick black horn-rimmed glasses on. “Nettie?” The word ended in a squeal as she ran to the car. “You came. Thank God, you came.”

She smacked her hands against my window like it wasn’t there, grinning like nothing had changed between us. But I couldn’t move. She opened the car door and pulled me out, hugging me, calling everyone to come see me. The prodigal had returned home.

Screen doors opened. People called my name and flew to my side. Daddy ruffled my hair with an earsplitting grin. Nana Gilbert wedged her shoulders into the crowd, fussing for a turn to hug my neck. I was jubilant. Back on my pedestal. Until the screen door to my house opened once more.