The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (31 page)

Chapter Sixty-six

IVA CLAIRE

1936

T
HEY WERE TALKING
on the telephone again. Tassie seemed to need to do that these days. “I wish I could be at your wedding,” she said. “I'd love to see you walk down the aisle.”

Iva Claire said, “Then come to Georgia.”

“I didn't mean it for real.”

But suddenly Iva Claire did. “I want you there, Tassie. I want to be like everybody else on my wedding day. I want my family there.” There was silence on the other end of the phone. “It's just one day,” Iva Claire urged. “I want to pretend I'm a normal person for just one day.”

More silence. Then Tassie said, “It
has
been a long time since the Sunshine Sisters worked. And if I came to the wedding, we wouldn't have to talk to each other.”

“
When
you come, we'll make sure we're never together. But I'll know you're there. That's what counts.”

“And I'll get to see Dalton for myself,” Tassie said.

When Tassie came to the wedding, she actually did speak to the bride, but only for a few seconds when she went through the receiving line. Other than that one moment, they were never together. By then it seemed silly to Iva Claire. Her wedding was so big she probably could have had Tassie as her maid of honor and no one would have noticed. But they were playing it safe.

It was hard to keep avoiding Tassie. She was dying to hear what her old friend thought of her wedding, her husband, his family, and hundreds of other things. But all that would have to wait for letters and long-distance phone calls. That's how they were playing it. Because they were so careful, they were sure they'd gotten away with it.

But the Garrison-Benedict wedding was news, and a picture of Mrs. Dalton Garrison dressed to leave for her honeymoon appeared in the
Atlanta Constitution
. Behind her, in the distance but still close enough to be clearly visible, was Tassie. It was an accident, of course.

The new Mrs. Garrison saw the newspaper picture when she got home from her wedding trip.

Don't think about it
, she told herself.
We've gotten away with it for this long. We'll get away with it again.

And for almost a year she was right. She moved into her beautiful new house, and began her new life, and felt so safe that instead of getting rid of the old suitcase with the swirling
B
on the side, she hid it and its potentially damning contents in the back of the window seat in her bedroom. And everything was fine. Until the letter came.

It arrived on the day when she was hosting a luncheon. Harrison Banning, Li'l Bit's father, had introduced her to a woman doctor who was trying to set up a practice in Charles Valley. Dr. Maggie, as she was called, was a pretty doll-like little person with a husky voice. Iva Claire quickly realized there was a will of iron behind her delicate façade.

“The patients I see can't afford to pay me,” Dr. Maggie said, “but they're the ones who need my help the most. I have children dying of diseases we've been curing for years. The other day I saw a case of smallpox—in this day and age! People like you, Miss Myrtis, have been vaccinated against smallpox for decades. This isn't just unfair, it's criminal, and I—” She stopped herself. “I'm sorry. I've come here to ask you for help and I'm being rude.”

“Don't apologize,” the lady of the house heard herself say. “You're frustrated. I understand.” Then she asked—and, oh, the power and the sheer pleasure of saying the words—“What can I do to help?”

Over lunch, with Harrison Banning's assistance, they set up a plan for a clinic to be built on the grounds of Garrison Gardens. In exchange for her rent, Maggie would treat Garrison employees for free.

“When you talk this over with Dalton, do make sure he understands that I treat both Negro and white patients,” Maggie said, as she was leaving.

It wouldn't make any difference to Dalton, but his daddy was going to have a fit. Still, Dalton's wife nodded her head and said confidently, “My husband would expect that, Dr. Maggie.” After all, this was just the kind of fight he'd married her for.

Two minutes after her guests left, the maid gave her the mail.

She was standing in the foyer under her beautiful skylights when she first saw the square white envelope; for some reason she always remembered that. She didn't recognize the handwriting, and no warning bells went off in her head. She was in her own home, with all the weight of the Garrison name behind her and the Benedict antiques respectably scattered through the bedrooms above. Nothing could hurt her. But as she opened the letter she had a quick vision of Mama ripping open the envelopes her father sent twice a year.

Don't think about that.

The letter began with the words
Dear Iva Claire.
The writer said he'd met her before, and they had things to discuss. His name was Stuart Lawrence.

He had chosen a little café on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta for their meeting.

“I'll know you the second you walk in the door,” he'd drawled on the telephone. “So don't you worry none about recognizing me.”

But she
had
recognized him as soon as she saw him waving at her from his table. His face was nice enough, but forgettable. It was the thick hair that had gone white that she remembered. And the big smile that stopped at his cold brown eyes. He was the lawyer Mama and Benny Ritz had hired to draw up the document making Mama Tassie's guardian. It had been ten years, but she still remembered his dingy little office and the sense she'd had, even as a kid, that the “guardianship” papers for which he'd charged them a week's pay wouldn't have stood up in court for five minutes. She'd had the feeling that Mama thought so too, because she'd lost them as soon as they got back to New York. And now Stuart Lawrence, who knew her real name, was smiling and beckoning her over.

She had debated about answering his letter. When something went wrong onstage, you ignored it. Either the audience wouldn't notice it or they'd forget it if you just went on as if nothing had happened. But she was too frightened to ignore Stuart Lawrence. Clearly, he knew something, and sooner or later he'd use it against her. So she'd agreed to meet him. Now, as she worked her way around the tables to the back of the empty café, she felt herself getting dizzy and breathless the way Mama used to. Perhaps she'd already made a terrible mistake.

“Iva Claire. It's been a long time, darlin',” he drawled, as she sat across from him.

“Please call me Myrtis,” she said. She was surprised at how strong she sounded.

He sighed elaborately. “I thought you were going to be smart, Iva Claire. You can't con me. I spent a whole year making sure of my facts.”

“I'm not trying to con you. I came to hear what you have to say.”

“I know the truth, little girl. I knew it when I saw that picture of you and Tassie together at your wedding.”

The one time we took a chance. Just once in all these years.

Don't think about it.

“And here's the part you'll love,” he went on, in his fake friendly way. “I don't even read the
Atlanta Constitution
normally. I still live down in Mercier—remember that little office I had, Iva Claire?”

She stared at him, keeping her face blank.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled the smile that never reached his eyes. “Life is funny. I never would have seen that picture, except I happened to be in Atlanta on business the very day it ran in the paper. I was sitting in a little restaurant not too far from here, and I saw your face, and right off I had a feeling I knew you. In my kind of work it helps to remember faces.” He studied her for a second. “Although I think if you'd had your hair like you're wearing it today, I might not have known. Changing yourself to a blonde was real smart, darlin'. But I couldn't see the color under the veil you were wearing.

“Anyway, it bothered me that I couldn't place you. Then I read that you were this high and mighty society belle named Myrtis Benedict, and I knew I'd never had anyone like that in my office, so I told myself I'd made a mistake. I was about to drop it, but then I saw little Tassie's face in the background. There was no way I was ever going to forget those big round eyes and the way they were staring at me when I wrote up those papers for your ma to ‘adopt' her. You know?”

Iva Claire told herself not to blink or move a muscle.

Stuart Lawrence chuckled; he was enjoying himself a lot. “Once I recognized little Tassie I remembered where I knew you. At first I thought to myself, Well, I'll be! Iva Claire Rain snagged a rich boy for a husband! It wouldn't be the first time a little actress did that. But you were calling yourself Myrtis Benedict. And that didn't sit right at all. So I started digging.” He leaned forward, obviously delighted with his story. “And all because I happened to be in Atlanta on the wrong day. Well, as the poet says, ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men.'”

It had been a long time since she'd been this afraid. She kept on staring blankly at him.

“Don't you want to hear what I know?” he demanded.

Yes!
But she gave him a careless little shrug. “I thought that was why you got in touch.”

“You were born in New York City. Did you know that? Too bad it wasn't a town in some little out-of-the-way place where they don't keep good records. I'm afraid the record-keeping in New York City is first rate.” He paused. She waited. “Your mother checked herself in as Mrs. Lilianne Benedict and she listed her husband as Randall Benedict. That was your father's name, wasn't it?”

She realized with a little shock that she'd almost never said his name out loud. She always referred to him as Daddy, the way his daughter—his other daughter—had.

Don't think about that.

“I guess your mother just couldn't face giving birth to a bastard. Wonder what she told them when the loving papa never showed up at visiting time. Or maybe he did. Maybe he came up to New York City to be with her when she had her baby. Wouldn't you love to know?”

“No.”
Yes
.

“Let's play a little game,” he said. “Would you like to guess what Randall's mother's name was?”

She didn't have to.

“She was named Iva Claire,” he said. “Your Ma must have been very sentimental.”

No
, Iva Claire thought,
Mama believed in insurance policies.

“Iva Claire is such a pretty name,” he went on, “and it's so unusual. I thought that when you and your mother and Tassie came into my office all those years ago. It was the kind of name you don't forget.” He settled back in his chair, watching her, trying to see past her blank stare.

“Is that all you have?”

“It's quite a lot. Because Randall Benedict had another daughter. And I may be just a l'il ol' country lawyer, but I think that raises a couple of questions. Don't you?”

If her heart didn't stop racing she was going to faint. She forced herself to breathe and said steadily, “I think you wasted a whole year on nothing.”

“Then I guess we'll have to see what happens when I bring the police into it. You're smart, Iva Claire, but I'm sure you've messed up once or twice. And of course, there's your friend Tassie.”

“What about her?” she blurted out, before she could stop herself. Because, of course, Tassie was the weak spot. She'd always known that. Tassie wasn't a natural liar the way she was.

She made herself look at him calmly, but it was too late. He'd seen her panic. And he knew where the vulnerable spot was.

“That time when you came to my office,” he said gently, “when you were young'uns, I could tell you knew the papers I was drawing up were worthless. But sweet little Tassie, she believed every word I said. She's not tough like you are, is she? If they question her long enough, who knows what she'd say?”

She managed to keep her face a blank.

“Iva Claire, I'm not the enemy,” he went on, in that same gentle voice. “I'm just a little guy trying to make my way, get some of the good things in life. And now you have more than enough to spare. All I want is for you to share some of what you've got with an old friend.”

She looked at him, and she saw herself sending him checks in long white envelopes for the rest of her life.

Like father, like daughter
, she thought grimly.

But Stuart Lawrence wouldn't be like her mother. He wouldn't take the money and stick to the rules. He'd want more and more. And he'd always be trying to play another angle. She needed to keep her eye on him. But how? Suddenly she had an inspiration. It would be a bad bargain, and it made her feel sick to think about it, but it might be the best she could do. She eyed the man across the table from her and shoved her fear aside. First she'd try one more time to get rid of him.

“I can't give you money,” she said. “I can't do that without making my husband suspicious.”

That threw him. For the first time he didn't look sure of himself. “I thought you had money of your own.”

“I'm a married woman. You don't know much about my husband's family if you think I handle my own finances.” The truth was, now that she was of age she could use her funds any way she wanted. Dalton would never have dreamed of interfering with her. But Stuart Lawrence didn't know that. “My hands are tied,” she said.