The Blue Bottle Club (16 page)

Suddenly something clicked in Brendan's mind, like the tumblers of a lock falling together, a door swinging open. A
Sense of Place.
Wasn't that the title of a novel that won the Pulitzer a couple of years ago? By some new, relatively unknown writer—what was her name? Cordelia something.

"You are Cordelia A. Lovell, the Pulitzer novelist?" Brendan knew her jaw was hanging open, but she couldn't help herself.

Dee laughed. "Guilty as charged. I thought you knew."

"Forgive me. I had no idea. I simply didn't make the connection." Briefly Brendan told the girl how she had come to find them, from the C. Archer Lovell on the credit card slip and the cross reference to Addie Lovell in the Playhouse workshop records. "I'd heard rumors that Cordelia Lovell had moved to this area, but you—well, I expected—"

"Someone much older?" The girl grinned. "I'm not as young as I look, Miss Delaney I'm thirty-seven. But I have to confess that I allow the misconception to go uncorrected—I even encourage it, on occasion. The truth is, I don't like being a celebrity. I value my privacy. And thankfully, my small measure of success has made seclusion possible." She ran a hand through her hair. "I write under the name Cordelia. But friends know me as Dee, and my credit cards are issued in the name C. Archer. It helps keep me from being recognized too often."

"I can't believe it," Brendan repeated. "Cordelia Lovell." She shook her head. "And Adora Archer is your grandmother? And she's alive?" Brendan knew she sounded like a complete idiot, but she couldn't seem to stop herself.

"Yes, and yes." Dee chuckled. "Very much alive. You'll see soon enough."

"She's here?"

"She lives here, yes. With me. But she's out at the moment. If you don't mind waiting, she should be home before long." She kicked her shoes off and tucked her feet under her. "Now, tell me about the story you're working on."

Brendan started. "Story?" She hadn't said anything about a story, she was sure of it. Only that Letitia had sent her to look for Adora Archer.

"I'm no fool, Miss Delaney. I know there's a story here somewhere. Heaven knows I've felt often enough what I see in your eyes right now. And unless I miss my guess, it's a story that won't let go of you. A destiny of sorts."

So she did know, Brendan mused. And she understood. Of course she would understand. She was a writer. Good stories were her bread and butter too. Her passion. Her life.

As Brendan related to Dee Lovell the events of the past few weeks—finding the blue bottle in the attic of Cameron House, and how enamored she had become with the idea of finding these women and discovering the outcome of their lives—she could see the young woman's excitement mounting. At last she finished, reached into her bag, and drew out the clouded glass bottle.

Dee reached for it, holding it carefully, touching its surfaces as if it were an icon from a sacred oracle. "This bottle holds my history too, you know," she said reverently. "And there's so much I don't know. I wonder—"

Just then the front door slammed shut. "Cordelia?" a woman's voice called out. "Sweetie, where are you?"

"In the library, Granmaddie," Dee called back. "Come in here—we've got company."

Brendan's heart began to pound.

Adora Archer had come home.

Brendan would have sworn that nothing could ever take her off guard as much as meeting Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cordelia A. Lovell. But she was wrong. Granmaddie—Adora Archer Lovell, now called Addie—was an even bigger shock.

She stood in the doorway, a diminutive woman no more than five feet tall, clad in a purple and green silk running suit and bright purple high-topped tennis shoes. Dazzling platinum blonde hair curled out wild and windblown from her forehead, and she paused only for a moment before dashing into the room and plopping down on the love seat next to her granddaughter.

"Hi, sweetie," she said, giving the girl a kiss on the cheek. "Sorry I'm a little late. You know how those old geezers at the center love to talk."

"Granmaddie goes to the senior center at Opportunity House on Thursdays," Dee explained.

"Yes, and I don't know for the life of me why I bother. Half of those folks are fifteen years younger than me, and still all they want to do is sit around on their keisters playing bridge. I did get Davis McClellan to dance with me today, but I practically had to drag him out onto the floor, and then everybody kept yelling at us to turn the music down."

"Not everybody stays as active as you do, Granmaddie."

"Well, they should, and that's the truth. Use it or lose it, that's my motto.

I can't wait till the Playhouse starts rehearsals again. I've heard they're going to do
Camelot
this year. I may audition for the part of Guinevere." She threw back her head and laughed, then snapped to attention and fixed her gaze on Brendan. "Who in blazes are you?"

Dee stroked the old woman's arm. "Granmaddie, this is Brendan Delaney. She's a reporter with WLOS, the television station."

"Caved in, did you?" She patted Dee on the cheek. "I thought you said you had absolutely no intention of doing interviews." The old woman nodded in Brendan's direction. "She's a gifted one, my granddaughter. But I guess you know that, or you wouldn't be here."

"Brendan didn't come to interview
me,
Granmaddie. She's here to talk to you."

"Yes, Mrs. Lovell," Brendan began, "I—"

"Oh, posh. None of that 'Mrs.' stuff. It's Addie. If you can't manage to be friendly, you can just run along."

"Yes, ma'am. Addie, I mean," Brendan faltered. "The reason I'm here—"

Addie held up a hand, and Brendan stopped mid-sentence. The old woman's attention focused for the first time on the cobalt blue bottle, sitting on the table next to Brendan's chair. Her hand began to shake, and tears welled up in her eyes. "It can't be," she breathed. She turned to Brendan. "Where did you get that?"

Brendan repeated the story she had told to Dee just a few minutes earlier—how the bottle had been discovered, and how she had determined to track down the four women and find out the end of the story When she got to the part about Letitia Cameron, Addie took in a quick breath.

"Tish," she whispered. "Alive?"

"Yes." Brendan smiled. "I spoke with her last week. You sent her a postcard from the Playhouse—"

"Carousel"
Addie finished. "I didn't know where she was—I just used the last address I had, from oh, fifteen years ago, maybe. I really didn't know if it would ever reach her."

"It was forwarded several times, but yes, it was finally delivered. Letitia said she had tried to call, but couldn't get a number from information."

"Our telephone is unlisted," Dee explained. "Otherwise—"

"I understand." Brendan leaned forward toward Addie. "I would like it very much if you would tell me your part of the story, Addie. You went to California, Letitia said, to follow your dream. But she didn't know much of anything after that."

"It was such a long time ago," Addie murmured, looking from Brendan to Dee and back again. "Such a long time. I tried to forget, but I couldn't. And now you come here with that—" She pointed at the bottle. "It's a sign, I think. A sign that maybe it's time, once and for all, to let the truth be told. Some of it I have never told anyone—not even my granddaughter." She paused and passed a hand over her eyes. "There have been too many secrets over the years, secrets I'm tired of keeping to myself."

Brendan got out her tape recorder and pad and moved her chair closer to the love seat.

"Are you sure you want to hear this? All of it?" Addie reached out a hand toward Dee. "It might make a difference in your feelings about your old grandmother."

"I'm sure." Dee smiled and squeezed the hand. "Nothing will ever change my love for you, Granmaddie." She motioned to Brendan, who handed her the glass bottle. "You and Letitia actually wrote out your dreams and put them into this bottle?"

Addie nodded. "And two other friends too—Eleanor James and Mary Love Buchanan." Her eyes took on a distant, faraway look. It was Christmas Day 1929. . . ."

ADORA

16

THE ACTRESS

December 24, 1929

A
dora sat in the second pew, craning her neck around to watch for Letitia and Philip's grand entrance. Tish had been her best friend since grade school, and Adora loved her like a sister, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what she saw in that insufferable snob, Philip Dorn. She didn't tell Tish that, of course. The girl was absolutely smitten.

Because of her own father's position as minister of Downtown Presbyterian—and the fact that the church catered to a lot of wealthy and influential congregants—Adora often found herself thrust into that aristocratic circle. But she had no intention of staying there. She had bigger fish to fry Fish her father would throw back if he ever found out about them.

But he wouldn't find out . . . at least not right away And by the time he did, it would be too late, and he wouldn't be able to stop her.

Most other girls, Adora realized, would doubt their ability to pull it off. But she wasn't most other girls. Acting came naturally to her. Her mother called it lying, but it wasn't deception, really. It was research. Playing a role, disappearing behind the facade of a different persona, was at least equal parts gift and skill. She had the gift, and, given a chance, she could develop the skill.

Take Tish, for example. In most instances, Adora was completely honest with her best friend. But when it came to Philip, and to that aristocratic circle of the Dorns—even to Tish's daddy—Adora could put on a front with the best of them. If truth be told, Adora favored Tish's mother. The woman had something special, a brightness that surrounded her like a halo. She was funny and generous and loving—all the things Adora's mother was not. Maris Cameron generated an atmosphere of welcome, so that even at the mature age of seventeen, Adora had to restrain herself from running to her motherly embrace every time she saw the woman. But in Tish's presence, Adora feigned a preference for Randolph, Tish's father. It pleased Tish and made her feel as if Adora understood her, when in fact Adora could never comprehend why her best friend was so blind when it came to discerning the true nature of those around her. She looked up to see Tish, resplendent in a green velvet gown that brought out the green in her eyes, squeezing into the pew with Philip in tow. If only Philip had the sense to appreciate what he had in Letitia Cameron. Despite her best efforts to cover it up, Tish had inherited her mothers generous nature and loving heart. And while Tish truly did love Philip, Adora suspected that Philip did not return that love, that he only wanted a trophy—a beautiful socialite who would hang on his every word, produce offspring as handsome as himself, and serve as hostess for the parties he would give when he became a financial bigwig like Tish's father.

Adora greeted Tish and Philip with the effusiveness that was expected and settled back into the pew. Her eyes wandered to the platform, where her father sat in his holy robes, his gaze fixed on his sermon notes. Soft organ music filled the sanctuary with the sounds of Christmas, and candles lit the room with a pulsing glow. For a moment Adora could almost sense a presence, a peace beyond human comprehension. Her father, she knew, would have called it the Spirit of God.

The problem was, this Spirit that Dad talked about from the pulpit didn't seem to have much effect on the way people acted in everyday life. Adora had read the Bible—you didn't grow up in a preacher's home without absorbing a thing or two—and from what she read, Christians were supposed to show love and compassion toward everybody. Jesus, after all, spent most of his time with prostitutes and sinners and lepers and poor people.

If Jesus had been pastor of Downtown Presbyterian, however, his ministry would have looked a lot different. In the two months since the Crash, a whole lot of those sinners and poor people had been coming to the door. Maybe not prostitutes and lepers—there weren't many of those in Asheville—but people who certainly did not fit the image Downtown Pres had cultivated over the years. And the church members hadn't exactly welcomed them with open arms. The women's society, in fact, including Alice Dorn and her cohorts and even Adora's own mother, had approached her father about taking steps to curb the influx of these people that "didn't fit in."

The whole thing appalled Adora. She wasn't exactly a social work do-gooder like Little Eleanor James, but she did find herself disgusted at the idea of so-called Christian people expending so much time and energy to try to exclude whole classes of outsiders. If that's what Christianity was all about, she was just about done with the whole idea.

If she could just hang on a few months longer—play the game, act out the role—she would be free from all of it.

Forever.