The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (34 page)

Chapter Seventy-one

CHERRY

2004

I
T WAS LATE,
and Cherry was exhausted. She and Essie had worked all day long without stopping, because Essie was determined that Mrs. Rain's house was going to be spotless before they left. Tomorrow, after the funeral, the
FORE SALE
sign would go up next to the mailbox in front, and in a week or two the real estate agent would hold an open house. The contents of the old place would be sold with it. Cherry's bags were already packed. She'd be spending the night with Essie, and in the morning she'd leave Beneville. The agency already had a new job for her.

Essie was walking through the house pulling down the shades; Cherry left her and sneaked into the kitchen. It was the first time she'd been able to get away from the older woman all day, and she wanted to retrieve the letter she'd hidden. When she got settled she was going to call the
Charles Valley Gazette
and ask for Laurel McCready's address. If they gave it to her, she'd send the letter on to its rightful owner. She opened the knife drawer. The letter wasn't there. Frantic, she searched through the other drawers, even though she knew where she'd put it.

“Sugar, if you're looking for that letter, I took it.”

Cherry turned to see Essie standing in the doorway.

“Essie, where is it? I want to send it to that girl Mrs. Rain used to talk about.”

“I ripped it up.”

“Oh, no!”

“I have my reasons.” Essie got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the faucet. “When I came to work here, I thought Mrs. Rain was the strangest woman I'd ever seen. Well, for one thing there was that
Mrs. Rain
business, instead of calling herself a good Christian name like Miss Annie or Miss Elizabeth. And she was all alone: no family, no friends, no children. In all the years I worked for her I don't think anyone ever came to visit in this house. No woman wants to live like that, Cherry.” She took a sip of water. “I couldn't figure out if she was shy or so mean people didn't want to have anything to do with her. Then I realized she had secrets. I never asked what they were; it was none of my business. But if she told you she was an actress—well, there are all kinds of actresses in this world. And maybe when she was an actress she did some things she wasn't proud of.”

“She sounded very proud—” Cherry started to say.

“She wasn't in her right mind, Cherry, not at the end. And she didn't live that lonely life all those years just to go spilling her secrets in her last days because she'd gotten feebleminded.” Essie finished her water, rinsed and dried the glass, and put it back in the cabinet. “Mrs. Rain was a good person, she always treated me right, and if she's not here to protect herself I'll do it for her. Now let's go. There's nothing more we can do here, and I need to put my feet up. I swear I don't know when I've been so tired.”

“Just let me get my bags,” Cherry said.

“I'll wait for you in the car,” Essie said, and she left.

Cherry walked down the long hallway to the sunroom and looked in. The big wingback chair they'd brought in when Mrs. Rain got sick was still there. They hadn't carried it back upstairs. Cherry went in and sat in the chair.

I'm sorry, Mrs. Rain,
she thought.
Essie's wrong. You knew what you were doing when you wrote that letter. You wrote it for Laurel McCready and I'm sorry I couldn't send it to her. I know you had a reason for telling her your story. And now she'll never know what it was.

Chapter Seventy-two

LAUREL

2004

L
AUREL WALKED OUT
to the dog pen, filled the water bowls, and patted Peggy's happy pack. She got into her car, drove back to her cabin, rounded up Patsy Cline, and picked up enough clothes for an overnight stay at her new home. In the morning she'd come back for anything else she wanted. Later on, she'd put the little house on the market. Or rent it out. She wasn't sure exactly what she'd do with it, she just knew she'd never spend another night there.

When Perry drove up to Garrison Cottage after work, she was waiting for him on the front steps. He was carrying a large round lump of something on a plate that was covered with tinfoil.

“You were expecting me,” he said.

“You had to be curious. Cute stunt with the dogs, by the way.”

“Maggie's idea. How are they doing?”

“They're happier in their own home. Patsy and I are joining them. Starting tonight.”

“You're going to live here?”

“Looks that way.”

She could feel how much he wanted to let go with one of his rebel yells, but he was being careful not to be pushy. “What about the gardens and the resort?” he asked, a little too casually.

“I'll be taking over. Any of the guys who want to stay on without the bells and whistles are welcome, but I don't think they will.”

“Maggie and Li'l Bit did their number on you.”

“Mostly, they said what I'd been wanting to hear. I was just too chicken to admit it.”

He couldn't resist a triumphant grin. “I like this, girl!”

“One thing you won't like. I'm giving up the Viper.”

“Why would you do a terrible thing like that?”

“It's a leadership thing. I just sent Pete Terranova a memo telling him the perks are history. I can't go around in an expensive car that guzzles gas when I've kicked his daughter's horse out of its stable.”

“Couldn't you give up something else?”

“We leaders have to make the tough decisions.”

“What are you going to trade it in on?”

“I thought something earth-friendly.”

When he let it loose, he had the best laugh in the world. It was as good as his smile—maybe better.

“What's that?” She indicated the lump.

“Mayonnaise cake.”

“You baked a cake for me?”

“Lord, no, you have enough problems without me cooking for you. This is from Maggie. And it isn't yours, it's mine. It's my birthday.”

“I'm sorry, Perry, I didn't know. I'd have gotten you a present.”

“I'm only seven years younger than you now.”

“Oh.”

“Now you don't have to be afraid people will say you're robbing the cradle.”

“I was never afraid!”

“Good,” he said, and he leaned over his cake to kiss her.

She'd been right about his potential in that department. He
could
make a woman's knees turn to jelly. Pulling away from him was almost impossible, but she had to. “You have to listen to me now,” she said.

“It would be easier if you'd stop stroking my cheek.”

She pulled her hand away. “When you were a kid, you had a crush on me because I was a lot older than you.”

“Only seven years. And I thought you were the prettiest thing on two feet. Still do.”

“But you don't know me. You're remembering a girl from twenty years ago. You were just a kid. That's ancient history.”

“I saw you with Peggy when she was dying. I watch you with Miss Li'l Bit and Dr. Maggie every day. That's not history.”

“You can do better than me. Don't interrupt. I'm not . . . you know what I am. And you should have the best. You're handsome and smart and funny. You can find someone who's not a mess.”

“Someone boring.”

“Someone who's educated—”

“And boring.”

“Will you stop screwing around? This is serious.”

“All right, seriously; about this boring woman of yours—”

“I never said boring!”

“Oh, yeah, you did. So, the boring woman: Will she read
The Great Gatsby
? Will she be rich? You're very rich, you know, and I've decided to become expensive.”

“Dammit, Wiener—”

“Nothing but eighty-dollar blue jeans for this boy toy—or is eighty selling myself too cheap? I'll have to look into that.”

“Don't make fun! I'm trying to do what's right.”

So he kissed her again.

“I don't want to disappoint you,” she said.

“I know what I'm doing,” he said softly. “And I know what I want. Do you?”

Sometimes you had to stop fighting. “Yes,” she said.

So they went inside her house and she gave him one hell of a birthday present, after all. And later on, when they cuddled up on one of the big couches in the living room, eating Maggie's mayonnaise cake, Laurel thought how easy life could be when you just let it. And how amazing.

The next morning, after Perry went to work, she drove to the cabin to get the books her father had left her and her ma's guitar. She'd been afraid that leaving the only home she'd ever known would be hard, but as she put her stuff in the Camaro she felt light and free. There were two more items she wanted; she ran back into the cabin and came out with a slim white jeweler's box and the battered old suitcase she'd found in the window seat in Myrtis Garrison's master bedroom. She added them to the pile on her front seat and drove back to Garrison Cottage.

Outside, the sun was shining, but Myrtis Garrison's master bedroom was dark because the shades were drawn. Laurel turned on a lamp and looked around. In the half-light, the pink walls, swagged draperies, and thick carpets looked oddly unreal, like a set for a movie or a play. But maybe that was just because it wasn't her taste.

Before she'd come upstairs, she'd made a brief stop in Peggy's little bedroom on the first floor. The object she wanted had been right where she'd thought it would be, on Peggy's crowded makeup table. Now she put it on Myrtis Garrison's bed along with the old suitcase and the box from the jewelry store. She opened the suitcase and looked at the contents. She'd never know the story behind the dress and the sheet music, but she couldn't make herself toss them. She was going to put everything back where she'd found it. Maybe in some future generation, another woman living in this house would open the window seat, see the gleam of a rusty gold hinge in the darkness, pull out the old suitcase, and wonder what the hell she'd stumbled upon. But first, Laurel had a couple of gifts of her own for this mythic person. She opened the white box from the jewelry store and took out the strand of pearls the nurses had taken off her ma's wrist after she died. Laurel looked at them for a moment and then dropped them into the suitcase next to the faded pink rose. Next, she picked up the artifact she'd snitched from Peggy's makeup table, the monogrammed thermos Peggy took everywhere because she never knew when she'd need an emergency swig of Gentleman Jack. In a way it was a shame to lock it away; it was one of the few things in this house that was unmistakably Peggy's. But this was for posterity. Laurel laid the thermos in the suitcase monogram-side up. Her Ma's pearls gleamed next to the rose. She closed the suitcase gently.

Outside the bedroom door, Patsy whined. The dog was not a happy girl, now that Peggy's dogs were back on their home turf and she was the interloper. She had reacted by sticking to Laurel like Velcro.

“Okay, I'm coming,” Laurel said to the dog. “Hang on.” She put the suitcase back in the window seat and started out. Before she turned off the light, she took one last look up at the canopy bed. She'd already called the antiques dealer to come and haul it off, along with the rest of the Benedict furniture and knickknacks. Somehow doing that had made her less angry at the great Miss Myrtis.

But I still wish I knew why Peggy was so afraid to get rid of all that stuff. Why the hell didn't she dump it forty-five years ago?

Chapter Seventy-three

MYRTIS AND PEGGY

1958

P
EGGY, I WANT TO TALK TO YOU,”
Miss Myrtis said.

Peggy put down the book she'd been getting ready to read. It had been almost three years since she had started working as a companion for Myrtis Garrison while the older woman recovered from her heart attack. Congenital heart failure, the doctor had called it. According to him, it ran in families.

Peggy's job was supposed to be temporary, lasting only for one summer. But congenital heart failure could be tricky, and Miss Myrtis's recovery dragged on. Without anyone really mentioning it, Peggy had become a fixture in the Garrison household.

After Miss Myrtis's first heart attack there was a second, and then a third. The doctor stopped talking about a recovery, and Miss Myrtis spent more and more of her days in the pink master bedroom, lying on the big canopy bed she'd had moved from the Benedict family house so many years before. Peggy stayed by her side, playing canasta or reading to her to distract her from the pain, until Miss Myrtis fell asleep and Peggy went downstairs to have supper with Dalton.

It was a routine that hadn't changed in three years. Until that night.

“I want to talk to you about Dalton,” Miss Myrtis said. For no reason at all, Peggy felt a twinge of guilt about all the suppers she'd had downstairs.

“I try to keep him company, Miss Myrtis,” she said. “He gets lonely without you.”

“Yes, he does. That's why he has to get married again after I die.”

“Miss Myrtis, we don't have to talk about that. You're going to get better—”

“I'm not, and we both know it.” The sick woman winced; the pain had been particularly bad that evening.

“You're hurting. Let me get you your pills.”

“Just listen to me, that's all I need.”

Peggy sat down at the side of the bed.

“Dalton will need a new wife. This time it should be someone gentle and sweet, who'll think he never does anything wrong. I wasn't like that.” She was having trouble breathing now, but Peggy knew she was determined to finish her thoughts. “Dalton didn't marry me to be sweet. Back then he thought he needed something different. But that's all over now.” She turned to look at Peggy. “The girl who marries Dalton now won't have an easy time of it. He'll be kind, but he's used to having his own way. I couldn't stop that.”

“Miss Myrtis, you've been a wonderful wife; everyone says so.”

“I couldn't keep my promises. That was the sad part. For Dalton and for me.” She looked around the room, and her eyes came to rest on the window seat. She stared at it for a long time; then she turned away and looked up at the canopy bed. “When I brought all the Benedict antiques to this house, I hated them. I didn't want them here. But then I realized they were a part of me, after all. They belonged to my father's people. Now, I'm glad they're here. I hate to think of this house without them.” Miss Myrtis was taking deep breaths now; her voice was hoarse and tired.

“You should lie back,” Peggy said. “I'll stay here with you and you can tell me more when you're rested.”

“No, I'm through talking. You can go.”

“I'll come back to see you later.”

“You don't have to; I'll sleep tonight. Turn out the light, please.” Suddenly she reached out and took Peggy's hand. Miss Myrtis never touched people. “Peggy, one more thing,” she said, in a voice that was so exhausted it was nothing more than a whisper. “Be careful of Stuart Lawrence. He knows all the secrets and he'll use them. If he's crossed, he could hurt everyone. Do you understand me?”

And even though she didn't at all, Peggy said, “Yes, Miss Myrtis.”

“Now go have supper with Dalton,” said the exhausted woman.

After she married Dalton and lived in the house Myrtis had built, Peggy signed over her power of attorney to Stuart Lawrence as Myrtis had. And she kept the house exactly as Myrtis had, with all the Benedict antiques.

But sometimes when Dalton was out hunting helpless animals or fishing, Peggy went into the foyer and looked up at the skylights and thought about the strange conversation she'd had with Myrtis so many years ago. She wished she could tell Myrtis that her secrets, whatever they were, were safe.

Maggie and Li'l Bit always said Myrtis was a woman who had failed herself.

“It's a pity, really,” said Maggie, “because her heart was in the right place.”

“She just never had enough courage,” said Li'l Bit.

Peggy knew a little something about that. She'd look up at the beautiful skylights and think about the child she'd never had—the child she'd always dreamed would be a daughter. More than anything else she would have wanted her daughter to have courage.