Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (14 page)

“A natural what?”

“Bedtime story. What do you think? And I wouldn't blame you one bit. I got myself a good look at him again at the meeting last night, first time since high school. He was quite a hunk back then, but honey, let me tell you — I have to say he's something else now. He can park his boots under my bed anytime.”

For a single moment Cammie felt a jarring tremor of something remarkably like jealousy. Then it was wiped from her mind. “Meeting?” she demanded. “Did you say meeting?”

“You didn't know? Reid invited all the mill employees and their families to a big fish fry at the mill camp on the lake — my baby brother Stevie let me tag along; he works in the instrument department, you know? Well, Reid got up in front of everybody and really leveled with them, just like his old man used to do.”

Cammie clenched her hands on her coffee cup. She took a quick sip before she asked, “What did he have to say?”

“Just that he knew everybody had been hearing rumors and he wanted to set the record straight. He admitted that an offer had been made for the mill, but said a decision was still a long way off. He mentioned feasibility studies, comprehensive audits, and a lot of paperwork to be done before anything concrete happens. In the meantime, he promised that he's doing his best to keep everybody's best interests in mind, and that everybody's job will be safe, no matter what.”

“That — That rat!” Cammie exclaimed.

Wen stared at her an instant. “All right, come on. Give. What did he do? I know he spent the night at your house, because Keith told Steve, and Steve never kept a secret in his life, not from his big sister. Did he run out on you?”

Cammie put a hand to her forehead, then pressed her eyes where a headache was beginning. “Is that what everybody thinks, that this is some sort of woman-scorned thing?”

“I never said that, honey,” Wen objected, reaching out to touch Cammie's arm in reassurance. “For all I know, the man took advantage of you and you're too nice to get back at him any other way.”

“Oh, God,” Cammie moaned in wry distress for the community imagination. “That isn't the way it was, either. Why in the world can't people mind their own business!”

“So all right, I can take a hint,” Wen said with a pretense of huffiness. “Changing the subject, I wanted a word with you about this business with the meetings and the press and all. I am hurt to the quick that you didn't wait till I got back to go with it.”

Wen had been away for several days on one of her regular jaunts to antique jewelry shows, buying and selling in a segment of the antique business she used to cover her personal finances. Cammie searched the other woman's face, trying to decide if she was serious, or if she should wait for the joke. “I might have, if I had known you were really interested.”

“I'm always interested, you know that. Nothing sends me up like making trouble. I hear you've got things stirred up pretty good.”

“Have I?” The taste of the coffee was suddenly bitter. She looked around for a place to put her cup.

Wen took it from her and plopped it unceremoniously on the seat of the nearest chair. “You've got the town fathers wetting their pants, honey, afraid you're going to screw up the deal that will bring them in all the lovely moolah — they can just see themselves collecting the check for all the extra taxes a bigger operation will have to pay. I heard one of them call you a crazy bitch yesterday. That means they're scared.”

“Of me?”

“Why not? You've got it all together: money, connections, background, looks. Hell, you could run for mayor and probably get it.”

“I don't want to run for mayor.”

“I do, but no matter. Actually, I'm still of two minds about this mill deal. Sometimes, I think it would be a good thing if Greenley didn't get too big. In a case like that, some man's always gonna want to be the boss. If it stays piddling-size, the menfolks may decide it's not worth it, that I'd be a shoo-in for mayor.”

“I'm not trying to keep Greenley small,” Cammie said, a frown between her brows.

“Aren't you? Well, that's sure what's going to happen if you have your way.”

“Besides,” Cammie went on, “you don't have to wait until a man fails to run before you try for mayor. You've got my vote any day.”

Wen's smile was dry. “Right, well, I'd rather have your support. Instead of seeing you waste it on this woodpecker thing.”

“I see,” Cammie said slowly, her gaze on the other woman's face. “All this was a roundabout way of telling me I would be better off doing something else.”

Wen sighed with a sound like a steam engine dying. “See, sweetie, the bigger the mill gets, the bigger the town gets. The bigger the town, the bigger the Pine Tree Festival. The bigger the festival, the bigger I get — well, I'm big enough already, but you know what I mean. I do, for sure, want to be mayor, but mayor of something, not mayor of nothing. Which is what Greenley's going to be if we don't watch out.”

“And what if Greenley isn't a fit place to live anymore?” Cammie's voice was tight. She hated being manipulated, especially by someone she had expected would understand.

“It'll survive.”

“Nothing's indestructible. Don't you read the papers? Haven't you seen the data on how much we need trees, on the effect of the destruction of the rain forests? The trees right here count just as much as those in South America. And so does the wildlife.”

“I'm not denying that, but what we have here isn't a bunch of exotic trees and birds that will be lost to the world if we don't save them; it's just pine trees and peckers — I mean woodpeckers.”

“You're hopeless,” Cammie said.

“I'm a realist. What you are is a romantic. Only there's not much call for romantics in Greenley. There's something else people are hungry for, something they haven't seen enough of lately.”

“And that is?”

“Money, honey.”

“There are more important things.” Cammie could not keep the defensive tone from her voice.

“Yeah, power for one. Which money can buy; let nobody kid you about that. You're standing in the way of both of those things for a lot of people, sweetie. Be real careful, or you just might get hurt when push comes to shove.”

There was not much that could be said by way of an answer to that. They went on to talk of other things, an upcoming estate auction they needed to attend for the shop, also the family reunion that would be held that weekend. It was officially the Bates family gathering, a branch of her mother's side of the family, but half the people in Greenley would be there, since family connections were an endless interconnecting circle in the parish and surrounding area. As the meeting began to break up, Cammie and Wen talked their way out the door and into the parking lot.

The words of warning Wen had spoken lingered, however, as Cammie drove homeward. They sprang loud and clear in her mind when she found the raw egg splattered on her front door.

The smell of it struck her in the face as she opened the back door. Nauseating, it swept toward her in waves on the draft coming down the long, open hallway. It was all she could do not to gag as she moved with mechanical footsteps toward the front of the house. She turned on the porch light and swung the main entrance door open with gingerly care.

A dozen eggs at least must have been lobbed at the door, and another dozen at the ornate fanlight in the shape of a rising sun above it, and the glass panes on either side. Only the thickness of the old glass and the smallness of the panes had kept the fanlight and side lights intact. Still, the thick yellow ooze covered everything in a primitive glue. Drying fast, it clung in globules and slimy sheets to the deep grooving and moldings around the glass.

Standing there in the light of the electrified lantern that swung on a chain in the center of the front porch, Cammie felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. That someone could dislike her and what she was doing so much that they would cause this kind of nasty damage made her sick to her stomach. She felt, too, as if she was spotlighted for all to see in her distress, as if there might be someone out there in the darkness watching, laughing.

She lifted her chin. Let them laugh. She wouldn't be defeated by a little egg. No, and not by friendly advice or broad hints, or subtle threats. She had just begun to fight.

Greenley hadn't seen anything yet.

Nor had Reid Sayers.

REID WAS AT THE BATES FAMILY REUNION.
So was Keith.

Cammie, catching sight of the two men standing some distance apart as she climbed out of her car, almost got back in again and left the park. What kept her from it was pride; that, and the certain knowledge that half the people standing around were watching her from the corners of their eyes and waiting to see what she would do.

Neither man had any connection with the Bates family, as far as she knew. Keith had most likely come for the free food and because he knew it would irritate her. It was possible, of course, that Reid was there for the same reasons, but she doubted it. Someone had invited him, no doubt, but the question was, who? And why?

Reid stood under a spreading oak, leaning with his back against the trunk. A shaft of sunlight falling through the tree leaves struck dark gold gleams from his hair and made a brilliant blue dazzle of his eyes. His stance was easy and relaxed as he lounged with one hand in his pocket. He looked at home, blending effortlessly with the men around him in his tan dockers and a yellow shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. As he met Cammie's gaze, she thought she saw a challenge in his face.

The family reunion, she saw with bleak appearance, was not going to be the pleasant gathering she had expected.

Keith gave her a cocky salute as he saw her. Leaving the man he'd been talking to, he ambled toward her. As he came close enough to be heard, he said, “I always did like that dress on you.”

She was wearing a dusty rose shirtwaist with a striped belt in rose, green, and aqua-blue, and paired with matching espadrilles. She had bought the whole ensemble only a month before. So far as she knew, Keith had never seen it. She turned from him to open the back door of her car, taking out the baked ham she'd brought. Over her shoulder she said baldly, “What are you doing here?”

His smile faded. His lips tightened before he answered, “Protecting my interests.”

“Meaning?”

“I saw Wen at the Dairy Queen. She said she invited Sayers. It seemed like a good idea for me to show up, too.”

Cammie gave him a scathing look as she handed him the ham to hold. “You must be the last person to find out that Reid and I are on opposite sides of this mill business.”

A short laugh left him. “I heard it, but thought I'd see for myself. What did he do wrong?”

“Not a thing.”

“You don't say. You got something against Swedes, then?”

“It's the expansion that bothers me, not who owns the mill, though I'd prefer that the policies Reid's father operated under stay in force.”

“Pollution controls? Emission tests? Sending out scouts to find out where the woodpeckers are nesting? Cordoning off whole sections of land until after nesting season?”

“He did all that?” She paused as she brought out the coconut cake she meant to add to the feast.

“Sure,” Keith said with a shrug. “The mill workers and wood haulers thought he was crazy, but he was the boss.”

“I didn't know.” She looked to where Reid was standing. He was watching her, though he glanced away, avoiding eye contact, as he saw her turn in his direction.

“There's a lot of things you don't know,” Keith replied in bleak tones.

“I'm not sure I want to, either,” she said sharply. Seeing Wen arriving in her GMC Suburban across the park, she gave her cousin a wave, but didn't go to meet her. Instead she retrieved her ham from Keith and left him standing as she turned away toward the food tables.

It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining, the breeze was warm, the grass was such a brilliant green it hurt the eyes to look at it. There were children playing on the swings, older women sitting under the pavilion in lawn chairs exchanging news and verbal genealogies, and older men standing in groups under the trees talking politics and sports. The food was laid out in the shade on long stretches of narrow wooden planking. The heaped platters and covered bowls and trays crowded every inch of surface, along with gallon jugs of tea and fruit punch and enough Styrofoam plates and cups to feed an army. The smells that rose from the tables wafted warm and luscious on the air.

Cammie found a place for her contributions to the bounty. Then, seeing her aunt Beck across the way, she moved in the direction of her favorite relative.

The elderly woman, pine-splinter sharp mentally at nearly a hundred, but about as substantial as a dandelion puffball, had come with her widowed daughter. The daughter had unloaded a huge pan of chicken and dressing and was carrying it to the tables. Aunt Beck was doing her best to lift a plastic dish of potato salad nearly as big as she was from the trunk of the car.

Cammie called a greeting as she approached, then folded her great-aunt in the quick, obligatory hug extended to family and close friends. She turned then and reached for the potato salad.

The covered plastic bowl was warm to the touch. “Shouldn't this be on ice?” she said dubiously as she looked from it to the elderly woman.

Her great-aunt, black-eyed and with her short white hair brushed back in waves as fluffy and light as the feathers on angels' wings, turned on her. “Who do you think you're talking to, girl? I've been carrying potato salad to reunions for seventy years, and I've not poisoned anybody yet. I made this with new potatoes in their skins and good onions and pickles, but no eggs and no mayo. Yogurt, that's what's in it. Good for you. You taste it, see if it's not the best you ever ate.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Cammie said meekly, though with amusement rising in her eyes. Aunt Beck was and always had been able to take care of herself. She never forgot anything, and you couldn't put much over on her. Getting around wonderfully well, she raised orchids and bromeliads in her small home greenhouse in winter, and raked her yard, dug flower beds, and planted slips and seedlings every spring. She was confidently planning her hundredth birthday party, and there seemed no reason to suppose she wouldn't make it.

“What's this I hear about you and the Sayers boy?”

The dark old eyes were quick and bright. They made Cammie feel as if she were about seven again. “Nothing much,” she said self-consciously.

“Humph. His grandfather was a fine man; Aaron, was his name. I walked out with him once or twice, before I settled to marry my Henry.”

“Aunt Beck!” Cammie said, pretending shock.

The elderly woman tilted her head as she watched Cammie. “You thinking of that family nonsense? I never did put any stock in that. Besides, telling young people they can't look at each other is pure silly, like fencing off catnip from a kitten. On the other hand, Aaron's grandson is different, a throwback to old Justin Sayers. And they used to say Justin was as sweet a man as ever lived, until you crossed him. Then he was a plain devil.”

“Was he now?” Cammie said in dry tones.

“What I'm saying is, you be careful.” Aunt Beck gave a sharp nod.

“I don't think you have to worry.”

“Humph,” the elderly woman said, her dark gaze skeptical.

The morning advanced. More and more cars arrived, disgorging more laughing men and women, more yelling children, more food. A band consisting of two guitars, a keyboard, and a bass fiddle assembled itself on a makeshift bandstand and began to play country and western favorites. A volleyball net was set up and the teenage set began a game. A few charcoal grills were lighted, and barbecued chicken and ribs that had been cooked at home were laid out on them to reheat and improve their flavor. The savory smoke and fragrance drifted in a blue haze over the gathering.

Cammie wandered here and there, talking to first one person and then another, renewing acquaintances, exploring relationships. Someone had worked up a computerized family tree, and she looked at it, ordering her own copy like everyone else.

Reid, she noticed, had hardly moved out of his chosen place, a spot under a big oak, at the edge of the group of men and as far from the women as possible. Several of the matrons and most of the younger women cast glances in his direction, and it was easy to see he was the subject of quite a few conversations.

Keith mingled more; he had attended many such reunions in the past and was easy with the big group. Every time Cammie saw him coming toward her, however, she changed positions, either surrounding herself with kids or burrowing deep into the group of older women. The last proved most effective; few men wanted to risk being trapped among the conversations about hysterectomies and hot flashes, who was sleeping with whom, and who had been mentioned on the prayer list with terminal illness.

There was one person who had no qualms about wading into the hen party. As a minister, he was used to dealing with the clannish and autocratic females who ran most churches, and most families.

“Well, Camilla,” the Reverend Taggart said in a low, confidential tone as he came up behind her, “I'm glad you saw the wisdom of my advice.”

“What advice—” Cammie began, then stopped as her uncle nodded in Reid's direction. “Oh, I don't think it was your advice so much as circumstances.”

“Whatever it was,” the minister said firmly, “I think you'll find it's for the best. I can't say I approve entirely of what you're doing about the mill now, but at least you're on the right path in avoiding extramarital affairs. Chastity is the right and proper course for a woman. Now you must search your soul for guidance toward a reconciliation with Keith.”

Cammie gave the heavy, silver-haired man a clear look. “I told you I don't want a reconciliation. And I'm not so sure about chastity.”

The reverend's eyes popped open. “Camilla! Watch what you're saying. I understand that you're joking, but other people don't know you that well.”

“Thank Heaven for small mercies.”

“Don't blaspheme,” he said severely. “I tell you again that divorce is an abomination. Nothing can sunder what He has joined.”

Her uncle's censure gave Cammie an almost irresistible urge to go and flirt outrageously with Reid. It didn't seem such a good idea, however, when she glanced in Reid's direction. He was taking note of the exchange, even as he gave most of his attention to the tall and earnest man standing next to him.

“Fudge, Jack!” came a sharp voice from behind them. Aunt Beck, seated upright in a webbed plastic and aluminum chair nearby, leaned as she spoke to poke the minister in the back with a sharp and bony forefinger. When he swung to face her, she went on. “You show me where it says in the Bible that divorce is an abomination. And while you're at it, tell me what business it is of yours what Cammie does or who she does it with.”

The minister's face tightened so abruptly that his jowls quivered. “It's my duty as a man of God—” he began.

The old woman gave a derisive snort. “You just like to meddle, always have, since you were old enough to walk. Used to come to my house with your mama and daddy. If they didn't keep an eye on you, you'd be going through my dresser drawers and peeking under the bed and in the icebox. Meddlesome, that's what you were.”

“I think,” Reverend Taggart said with barely concealed annoyance, “that you have me confused with some other child.”

“No, I don't. It was you.” The sharp brown eyes inset in fine crepelike wrinkles crackled with enjoyment. “And when you weren't meddling, you were listening to things you shouldn't. Never did know why you decided to be a preacher, unless it was curiosity about other people's sins and carryings on.”

Sara Lou Taggart, the Reverend Taggart's wife, moved with hesitant steps from where she had been quietly talking to a friend. Brushing at her silver-streaked brown hair with a quick, nervous gesture, she said, “Why, Aunt Beck, what a thing to say to Jack. He's just trying to guide Cammie in the way he thinks she should go.”

“What does he know about Cammie and her doings?” The old lady's lips twisted. “Or guidance, either.”

Color that might have been from anger or embarrassment rose in Jack Taggart's face. His wife threw him a quick, anxious glance. “He's a man of God. What else is he supposed to do?”

“Mind his own backyard and preach the gospel, that's what,” Aunt Beck said positively. “And let other people be.”

“Come along, Sara,” the minister said. “You know there's no use arguing.”

The censure in his voice suggested that his wife had started the imbroglio. It also implied that the elderly woman was too senile to be worth the time it took to argue with her.

“Turkey,” Aunt Beck muttered, casting a narrow and resentful gaze after him.

Cammie, hiding a smile, wondered which of her great-great-grandchildren the elderly woman had picked up that phrase from. She touched her aunt's fragile, bony shoulder. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”

“Ha,” the silver-haired woman said. “I've no patience with fools, even well-meaning ones.”

Cammie, uncertain just who the old lady considered foolish, and afraid she might learn, felt it was wisest to remain silent.

Just when everyone was beginning to think that starvation in the midst of plenty was at hand, the women still arranging bowls and platters of goodies glanced at each other, murmured among themselves about who else might be coming, then decided it was time to eat. Someone began to prepare plates for the younger children. Another woman lifted her voice, calling to the men to come and get it. Brother Taggart graciously accepted an invitation to give the invocation. Immediately thereafter, everyone fell upon the feast.