Christmas Wedding (6 page)

“
I have not been skulking! I came to see Aunt Ruby because we had so much to discuss, catching up to do. And also because I wanted to get to know you. Both of you.

“
I wasn’t able to find Aunt Ruby in Savannah. She did not live at the old house. It has been years since we last saw each other. But I did see your wedding announcements in the Savannah newspaper two Sundays and drove here immediately.”

“
And just when did you see our mama?” I asked. “And where?”

Melanie crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture, and sat up even straighter in the faded chintz wing chair. “Yes, where? Were you sneaking around here while we were growing up?”

Scarlett gave Aunt Ruby a helpless look. “I was afraid I’d get this reaction. I told you this wouldn’t work. I’ll go.” She got up to leave.

“
No!” Aunt Ruby cried sternly. “You will not go. You’ve done nothing wrong, and you are entitled to respect from these girls. Ashley, Melanie, I’m ashamed of you girls. And your mama would be too. She raised you better. Melanie Wilkes, you mind your manners. You too, Ashley. Now sit back down, Scarlett.”

9

Scarlett resumed her seat on the sofa next to Aunt Ruby and Aunt Ruby reached out her arm and gave Scarlett a comforting hug. Then she told us, “Do you remember how your mother used to make trips to New York twice a year? That is where Scarlett grew up. Your mother used to visit her there. Your mother loved all three of you girls but she was trying to preserve her marriage to your father and trying to protect you girls from what she saw as a weakness in her past.”

“
Aunt Ruby, please,” I said. “Start at the beginning and tell us the whole story. Scarlett, I’m sorry if we’ve been rude to you. You look just like Mama. And Melanie. It’s been quite a shock.”

Melanie joined in. “Yes, a shock to have you show up, and right when we’re already stressed out over the wedding. Sorry.”

But I knew Melanie well enough to know that she was not feeling contrite, but acting nice, the way we’d been raised to act. How many times had I heard Mama say to us, “Be nice, girls,” when we were acting up as youngsters?

“
All right,” Aunt Ruby began as she reached for the iced tea pitcher to fill our glasses. “I’ll tell you some ancient history. But first, help yourselves to a sandwich. It’ll do you good to have some nourishment in your stomach.

“
Now,” she began after a sip of tea. She seemed nervous, and Aunt Ruby was impervious to nervousness. I’d never seen her nervous before. She cleared her throat.

“
When Claire was seventeen she fell in love with a Savannah boy named Rickie Barrett. A nice boy. From a nice family. Our mama and daddy did not object to him, but they were troubled that Claire was so young. She and Rickie were as thick as grits. Inseparable. The Vietnam War was at its height and Rickie, who was twenty at the time, was in the R.O.T.C. Well, he got called up, and it just about tore Claire apart. He was shipped to Vietnam and your mama cried herself to sleep for months.

“
Six months after he departed, his parents, Eugene and Jo Barrett, got a visit from two army officers. Rickie had been killed in an ambush by the Viet Cong. Claire was hysterical. Daddy sent for the doctor. She had to be medicated but they had to be careful because she was five months pregnant.”

“
Oh, lord,” Melanie murmured.

“
Your grandmother Chastain decided it was time for a prolonged visit to her family in Richmond and that Claire must accompany her. And you, Scarlett, were born in Richmond. There was never any thought of giving you up to strangers. Right away, Eugene and Jo claimed you for their own. They said you were all they had left of Rickie who had been an only child.”

“
My mother told me everything,” Scarlett said in a subdued voice. “She told me how heartsick she had been. How grief stricken.”

“
She was clinically depressed, Scarlett,” Aunt Ruby said. “It was bad. She was that way for years. And she didn’t come out of it until she met Peter Wilkes. She told me she had never told him about you. She said that at first she was afraid he’d think badly of her, and then later, it seemed too late, that if she told him then, it would seem that she had been lying to him and misrepresenting herself. So she didn’t tell him. Never told him.”

Scarlett spoke next as Melanie and I listened intently. “I grew up in the heart of New York City. My daddy – that’s how I thought of him, but he was really my grandfather – was an executive with a large chemical company. Mother, that is Grandmother Jo, occupied herself with charities. She was a wonderful mother to me. They both were wonderful parents. They talked about how much it hurt to lose their only son and that if it were not for me they would have died of grief. I was a blessing, they told me, and they loved your mother for giving me to them.

I knew they were my grandparents but since they were the only mother and father I ever knew, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t know anything else.

“
I was happy. I attended a private girls' school. I had many friends. I was popular. And music was my life. Voice lessons and piano lessons. Dancing lessons. First ballet, then modern dance. I loved precision dancing and eventually I landed a role with the Rockettes, performing at Radio City Music Hall and on tour. So you see I had a full and happy life until something happened to spoil everything almost six years ago.”

“
When did you meet our mother?” I asked, more interested in Scarlett’s relationship with our mother than in Scarlett’s problems.

“
I’ve always known her, ever since I was a little girl. I grew up knowing her but we called her Auntie Claire. Mother would say, ‘Auntie Claire’s coming for a visit, Scarlett,’ and we’d all be excited and pleased to see her. She showed us pictures of her babies, and I remember how happy my mother and daddy were for her. And relieved; they seemed relieved. Later, I figured out that they must have worried that Claire would one day try to reclaim me.”

“
I remember those shopping trips,” Melanie said. “I never understood why she refused to take me with her. But Daddy said she needed time to herself. Mama was always kind of fragile, you know. And I thought he was right, because she always seemed happier when she returned home.”

Melanie got a thoughtful look on her face. “Always seemed happier? It was seeing you that made her happy.”

“
Auntie Claire was so proud of you girls and told us all about your latest accomplishments. About Ashley’s artistic abilities, and Melanie’s cheer leading, and when you won the North Carolina beauty pageant – why, she was simply over the moon!”

“
Mama used that expression all of the time,” I said. “She always used to say that something was ‘simply over the moon’.”

Melanie turned to Aunt Ruby. “Were you in touch with her too?”

“
Yes, dear. I stayed in touch with the Barretts until their deaths. And then about six years ago, I lost touch with Scarlett. Her phone had been disconnected, the condo had been sold, and I simply could not find her. I was very concerned. Scarlett, dear, I have missed you so much.”

“
Me too, Aunt Ruby. I’m glad we are reunited. And we’ll make up for the years we’ve been apart.”

“
Then, Scarlett, I guess you didn’t know when Mama died almost a year and a half ago,” Melanie said. “Aunt Ruby would not have been able to reach you to tell you. I’m sorry you could not come to the funeral.”

“
And your name,” I interjected. “How like Mama to call you Scarlett. You know, I’ve always wondered why she had not given Melanie the name of Scarlett. She was so smitten with the Gone With the Wind characters.”

Scarlett smiled a sad little smile, and her smile was so like Melanie’s. And Mama’s. “You are right. Aunt Ruby was not able to reach me to tell me about my mother’s death.”

For a second I was jolted. It was jarring to hear this stranger refer to my mother as her mother.

Scarlett went on, “But I did know when she died. I learned about her death from Star-News online. Circumstances prevented me from being here. It was impossible for me to come,” she said sadly. “I wanted to be here. And it about broke my heart that I couldn’t be.”

Again, Aunt Ruby covered Scarlett’s hand with her own. “It would have been dangerous for Scarlett to attend the funeral. Tell them, Scarlett. Tell them everything.”

10

Aunt Ruby turned to us. “She’s been staying here with Binkie and me. We have talked and talked, and finally caught up. Now it is your turn to hear her story.”

“
This is all so mysterious,” Melanie said.

Scarlett began, “Almost six years ago something happened that changed the course of my life drastically. And not for the better. I am lucky to be alive.”

“
What happened?” I asked.

“
Yes, tell us what happened,” Melanie said.

“
It’s a long and complicated story and it happened all because I foolishly kept a car in Manhattan. Nobody drives in Manhattan. It’s just plain foolhardy . . .”

“
Foolhardy!” I interrupted. “That’s another one of Mama’s expressions.”

“
Ashley, don’t interrupt,” Melanie scolded.

“
Oh, sorry, Scarlett. Please go on with your story.”

“
I inherited our apartment from my parents. And Daddy left me a sporty little BMW that he loved to drive around Manhattan on weekends, or take out into the country, and ‘open her up’ as he would say. I could have sold the car, but like Daddy I enjoyed driving her occasionally. And as our condominium on Beekman Place was in a large apartment house with an underground garage, parking was not a problem. But mostly I took buses or cabs.”

Aunt Ruby got up. “I think we’ll be needing something stronger than iced tea. I’ve got a nice bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream that I’ve been saving. Let me open that.”

While we waited for Aunt Ruby to return with a tray of glasses and the bottle, and a crystal plate of lemon wedges, Scarlett told us that her parents had died of illnesses, one shortly after the other.

“
It happens that way in a good marriage,” I said. “Our mama went downhill after Daddy died. She never was the same.”

“
I’m sorry I didn’t know,” Scarlett said. “We were all old enough by then for us to finally know one another. And we would have if it were not for what happened that night six years ago.”

Melanie moved to the edge of her seat. “What happened?” she asked as Aunt Ruby handed us each a glass of sherry.

“
It was a Saturday night. I was dancing in the eight o’clock performance at the music hall. Then there was a party at the apartment of one of the cast. I knew it was going to be a late night so I took the BMW.

“
After the show, I filled the car with as many of my friends from the cast as would fit and we drove further uptown to the party. I parked on the street. At about one o’clock, I’d had enough and left the party -- alone.

“
I took Fifth Avenue downtown. Someone had set a partially-full Coca-Cola can on the floor and it rolled over and was spilling onto the carpet. Now Daddy had kept that car in pristine condition and I prided myself on doing the same.

“
So when I spotted a bus stop on the Central Park side of Fifth Avenue, I pulled over to the curb. I was in the lower Sixties by then, just below the children’s zoo and before you reach the Grand Army Plaza. There’s a high stone wall that separates the park from the sidewalk, but there are entrances into the park spaced at intervals. No one goes into the park at night.”

“
Oh gosh, Scarlett, you are really spooking me out,” Melanie said.

“
Me too,” I said, remembering my days as a student in New York. I sipped sherry; it was hot and cold at the same time. Cold on my tongue, yet hot on the back of my throat. I needed that warmth. Bad news was coming, I was sure of it, and I remembered Kiki’s reading of the cards. The Queen of Cups signified conflict, aggression, a struggle. Was Scarlett the Queen of Cups? It seemed that she was the mysterious woman whom it was up to me to identify.

Scarlett continued, “I parked at the curb and opened the driver’s side door to spill the Coca-Cola out onto the pavement. I had to put the car into park so I could open the door. The doors lock automatically when you are in drive, you see, but when you are in park, they unlock automatically too.”

“
Oh, no,” I gasped. I had lived in New York for four years: you did not drive around with unlocked car doors.

Scarlett continued, “Before I knew what was happening a man had jumped into the car on the passenger side. I thought it was a carjacking. I told him I’d get out. The keys were in the ignition. I told him he could have the car. Just let me go.

“
But he made it plain he wanted both me and the car. He had a gun which he pressed against my temple and he ripped the keys out of the ignition. He said, ‘Now we’re going for a walk, girlie, or I’ll shoot you dead right here and now.’ And here’s another foolish thing. I didn’t even have my seat belt on. That might have bought me some time.

“
With brute strength he dragged me over the stick shift and out through the passenger door. At that time I was in good shape, better than I am now. I was strong but I was no match for him. I realized that he had size and male strength on his side, that fighting him would be hard.”