Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (7 page)

“What did you decide to do about your honeymoon?” Lavonne asked.

Nita shook her head. “We're not taking one. At least not now. I've got school and there's no one to leave the children with, so I think we're going to take one in the summer, when the kids are on vacation with Charles.” She sipped her drink and then put it back down. “Not everyone takes a honeymoon. It doesn't mean anything. Virginia didn't take one.”

Eadie rolled her eyes. “Hey, I'm having a good time here,” she said. “Let's try not to spoil my buzz by talking about Virginia.” She looked steadily at Nita. Nita pretended to find something floating in her glass. Eadie said, “Please don't tell me you still talk to that old witch.”

Nita tapped the edge of her glass nervously. She didn't tell them how she'd gotten a call yesterday about a woman named Leota Quarles, who had supposedly worked for Virginia's family back when Virginia was a girl. Nita was still trying to figure out whether or not to take the interview. “I ran into her in the grocery store,” she said, waving her hand vaguely.

“Well that was a special bit of bad luck for you,” Lavonne said. “But remember, you don't owe her anything. She's your ex-mother-in-law.”

“That's right,” Eadie said. “Count your blessings.”

“And Jimmy Lee's mother is dead so you won't have a new mother-inlaw.”

“There you go,” Eadie said. “Count another blessing.”

“Not everybody has bad mothers-in-law,” Nita said. She looked at the calendar above the phone. She cleared her throat. “Sometimes people change,” she said in a small defiant voice.

Eadie and Lavonne looked at each other. The clock ticked steadily on the wall. A delivery truck rumbled down the street, its headlights casting geometric shadows against Lavonne's plantation shutters. “Is there something you want to tell us, Nita?” Eadie said, looking at her curiously.

Nita cleared her throat again. “How's Trevor?” she said.

Eadie glanced at Lavonne and then back at Nita. “He's fine. He said to give you a big hug and tell you congratulations.”

“He's so sweet.” A delicate blue vein threaded its way up Nita's temple. She touched it lightly with her fingers and then dropped her hand back down on the counter. “I'm just so proud of him, about the book and all. I can't wait to read it.”

A muscle moved in Eadie's cheek. “Let me guess,” she said flatly. “You invited Virginia to the wedding.”

Nita flushed and pushed her hair out of her face. “Look, y'all, she's the children's grandmother,” she said stubbornly. She fanned her fingers out and flattened them on the counter on either side of her glass. “I believe in forgiveness and redemption. I believe in giving people a second chance. Virginia's not the same person she was when I was married to Charles.”

“Really?” Eadie said, raising one eyebrow. “Was there an exorcism while I was away? Did someone call a priest while I was in New Orleans?”

Lavonne, who had sat quietly through all this, said, “Actually, Nita may have a point. Regardless of what Virginia may have done in the past, regardless of how underhanded, selfish, immoral, and unethical she may have been, Nita's forgiveness of her sets Nita on the path to psychological wholeness and redemption.”

“Is that the pomegranate martinis talking, Lavonne, or is that you?”

“Mix up another shaker and I'll let you know.”

“I shouldn't drink any more,” Nita said. “I should call Jimmy Lee to come get me. He'll be worried.”

“Forgiveness is overrated,” Eadie said. She lifted her drink, took a long pull, and then set the glass down carefully on the counter. “Revenge. Now there's a concept you can sink your teeth into, there's a concept you can build your whole damn life around.” She looked at Lavonne for confirmation.

“Put a scooch less pomegranate in this batch,” Lavonne said. “I like to taste my vodka.”

Eadie made up a new batch and poured another round of drinks. “I really should get going,” Nita said. “I've got a lot to do tomorrow.”

Eadie propped her chin on her hand. She waved her finger back and forth in front of Nita's nose. “Just say the word, Nita, and I'll call Virginia and uninvite her from the wedding.”

Lavonne sipped her drink. “You don't owe her a thing,” she said.

“I've thought about this and I think it's the right thing to do.” Nita frowned and shook her head. “It's like starting over, you know. Rebuilding fences.”

“Fences?” Eadie said. “Hell, you'll need to build a goddamn fortress if you're dealing with Virginia.”

“Build a siege engine,” Lavonne said.

“A trebuchet,” Eadie said. “Or better yet, an underground bunker.”

Nita giggled. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse to call Jimmy Lee. “Y'all are overacting,” she said. “Virginia's not that bad.”

V
IRGINIA AWOKE ON
F
RIDAY MORNING TO FIND
R
EDMON GONE
. This was a rare occurrence; they normally breakfasted together, and she found herself wondering if he might have tired of her already. Far from depressing her, this thought gave her a little hopeful trembling sensation in the pit of her stomach. But when she went into the kitchen, she found a note beneath the sugar jar: “Queenie, had to go up to Atlanta. I'll bring you something nice. Love Red.” Virginia shuddered to think what “something nice” might be. The last gift he gave her had been a leopard-print push-up bra and matching thong, the kind of thing Jane might have worn if she was trying to coax Tarzan into a new zebra-skin sofa for the tree house.

Virginia poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. Behind her the coffeepot gurgled and steamed. She sipped her coffee and tried not to think about last night. She supposed the slight tinge of self- loathing and nausea she was feeling was probably no different from what a Saigon brothel girl must feel every morning of her life. Her marriage to the Judge had been no different, although with him sex had been all about power; and with Redmon it was all about his admiration of her. She supposed, in some distant, remote, unexplored crevice of her heart, she felt flattered. It wasn't love, but it wasn't exactly disgust, either. At least, not entirely.

Bright sunlight fell through the long windows, and beyond the lawn a dark rim of trees rose against a slate blue sky. She glanced at the newspaper that Redmon had left open on the table. After a while, fortified by her second cup of coffee and unable to stop herself, she picked up the paper and opened it to the editorial page. It was a long-standing habit, one of which, although painful, Virginia had never been able to break herself. The woman's photograph, small and gray, hung from the upper-left corner of
the editorial page. Her byline read “Grace Pearson, Staff Writer.” She seemed to gaze out at Virginia with the scornful, knowing expression of one who smells something foul, and knows it emanates from Virginia's direction. How anyone could name a six-foot, overeducated, liberal-minded Amazon
Grace
was beyond Virginia's comprehension.

Grace Pearson was a local girl whose parents had had the misfortune and short-sightedness to send to Wellesley. She had rewarded them by returning to her hometown to work as a political writer for the local newspaper, where she churned out truckloads of liberal propaganda. She and Virginia had been enemies for years.

One of Pearson's earliest editorial targets had been Judge Broadwell. She had written an article about the strict sentencing of juveniles and African Americans that occurred in his courtroom. In the article she referred to him as “the Hanging Judge.” On reading this, he had gone into an apoplectic fit so severe Virginia had thought he was having a stroke. After that, he took to calling Pearson a femi-Nazi obstructionist and would read her editorials aloud every afternoon over cocktails and rant and rave like a lunatic.

After he died, Pearson took on his son. Charles had been named president of the Bar Association and was just beginning what he hoped would be a long and illustrious career that might end in the governor's mansion or, who knew, maybe even in the U.S. Senate. As president of the Bar Association, he had made it his mission to try and bridge the deep divide that existed between the local legal and medical professions. With that in mind, he had gone out to the Ithaca County Hospital to observe doctors in action, the idea being that direct observation of the daily life-and-death decisions made in the operating room might lead to more understanding on the part of the legal profession for their medical colleagues. The walk-a-mile-in-myshoes theory. Unfortunately for all concerned, Dr. Willis Guffey had ruined this opportunity for conciliation by choosing this very day to operate on the wrong knee of a young black athlete by the name of Dicie Meeks. This blunder was made worse by the arrogant Dr. Guffey, who, on being informed of his mistake at the first slice of the scalpel by the operating room nurse, quickly cursed her into horrified silence and continued cutting, bellowing from time to time, “Goddamn it! I don't see a thing wrong with this knee. Cartilage is fine. What in the hell is wrong with these people? Wasting my time like this! There's not a goddamn thing wrong with this knee!”

Charles did what he could to hush the matter up, using his position and
considerable influence to ensure that no local lawyer agreed to take the Meeks case. But Meeks's parents went to Grace Pearson, and when the story broke, the scandal it caused reached all the way to the capital and beyond, thus forever squashing Charles Broadwell's plans for a political career.

Virginia shook out the paper and raised it to eye level. Despite her determination not to, she began to read. Pearson's column today was on the inequality of women in the workforce. The whole time she read, Virginia kept her top lip curled in a scornful grimace.

Having survived the treacheries of a man's world, Virginia had little compassion for the less determined members of her own sex. She had never had a close female friendship, she gave her money to preachers who preached against the independence of women, voted against legislation that promoted sexual equality, and was a staunch member of the Republican Party. Indeed, it was during her stint as president of the local Republican Women's Club that her secret dislike of Grace Pearson had flared into open warfare. Virginia believed that a lady should never disgrace herself by allowing her name in print, but angered by one of Pearson's columns, and emboldened by the example set by her own personal hero, Phyllis Schlafly, Virginia had responded in a quarter-page letter to the editor. She had refuted Pearson's liberal viewpoint with an argument no sane, feminine, well- bred Christian woman could possibly deny as truth. Rather than retiring from the field in shame, Grace Pearson had mounted her own counterattack, one that began with the bold-faced, italicized words,
My Dear Madame President
.

Realizing she could never win, Virginia had eventually tired of the game, refusing to respond openly to any of Pearson's jibes. Instead, during Bill Clinton's tumultuous years, she had taken to sending Pearson political cartoons that portrayed Clinton's relationships with Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones in a less than favorable light. Since George Bush ascended the throne, Pearson had reciprocated, sending Virginia political cartoons and pages from a calendar that parodied the president's speeches. The one she received last week had read, “We've got to make sure there is more affordable homes,” and the one yesterday read, “God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear.” Virginia saw nothing wrong with the last one. She thought it was rather sweet.

She closed the newspaper defiantly and rose and went over to the trash
compactor to throw it away. In the overall scheme of things, Grace Pearson was just a minor irritation. Virginia had more important things to think about. Tomorrow was Nita's wedding day, and Virginia had to decide what she was going to wear and how she was going to conduct herself. She had a lot of plotting and planning to do if she was ever going to ferret out what Nita had done to Charles to make him agree to that ridiculous divorce settlement without so much as a whimper. Once she figured that out, then she'd know how to even the score.

With any luck, and a good deal of effort, she'd know the truth tomorrow.

T
HE DAY OF THE WEDDING DAWNED BRIGHT AND SUNNY
. There was frost on the grass, but by nine o'clock it had warmed up to close to sixty-eight degrees. Lavonne and Eadie showed up a little early to help set up the buffet, but by twelve-thirty Nita was still running around the yard dressed in sweatpants with her hair done up in big rollers. The ceremony was set to begin at two o'clock, followed by a buffet and live music.

“Shouldn't you be getting dressed?” Lavonne said, when she saw her. “Shouldn't you be resting?”

“I should be doing a lot of things,” Nita said, looking like she might cry. “I told Jimmy Lee and the kids to get those lanterns strung and all the dog toys put up and they're just now getting around to it. I told them yesterday to get this yard cleaned up.”

Eadie put her arm around Nita. “Now calm down,” she said. “Everything's going to be fine. You should be enjoying this. I mean, this is the day you've looked forward to your whole life.”