The List (30 page)

“Good morning,” he said. “Where's Sleeping Beauty?”

“She's getting ready. I called Helen Manor, and you are welcome to come up for the day and stay for supper. Do you want some coffee and a pastry?”

Renny popped a couple of pastries into his mouth. “I don't want to ruin my appetite. I promised Jo some barbecue and thought we might stop at a place I know about in Newton for lunch.”

“Here are directions to the Manors' place. It's near Starkeville,” Daisy said, laying a sheet on the table.

Renny studied the paper.

“Is it a little cooler today?” Mrs. Stokes asked.

“Yes, and since it's not going to be scorching hot, I thought we might ride with the top down.” Jo walked in as Renny finished his sentence.

“Take down the top? That would be fun.”

“According to these directions, most of the roads are two-laners through rural areas.”

“Do you have a scarf I can wear on my head?” Jo asked Mrs. Stokes.

“No, I don't think I do.”

“I've got a brand-new Duke cap,” Renny offered. “A friend named Morris gave it to me, knowing I would never wear it.”

“OK.”

“The cap is upstairs. I'll get it.”

Renny put on a well-worn UNC cap and turned the car around in the driveway. Jo adjusted the size of the Duke cap and tucked most of her dark hair under it.

“This way no one from either Chapel Hill or Duke will throw a rotten tomato at us,” he said. “They'll just wonder what the nice-looking girl from Duke is doing with the scruffy guy from UNC.”

As they wound through the tree-lined streets with the top down, they enjoyed the full effect of the ever-changing jigsaw puzzle created by the contrasting sun and shade.

“We'll go through Uptown so you can see the skyscraper that houses my cubicle.”

“You've got more than a cubicle, don't you?”

“Just barely. You've not seen me in my work environment. I'm a lot like Dilbert.”

“Collection of curved ties and all?”

“You bet.”

Turning on Trade Street, Renny slowed before the four huge statues to Industry, Commerce, Transportation, and the Future that flanked the roadway like sculptured meteors dropped from the sky.

“There it is. I'm on the twenty-second floor. Now you can visualize my habitat from Monday to whenever.”

“I suppose you don't have a window, do you?” Jo leaned her head back in the seat so she could look straight up as they passed the sleek black structure.

Renny laughed. “That's at least twelve years in the future.”

They left the city, traveling northwest through a succession of small North Carolina towns. It wouldn't be accurate to describe them as pearls on a string. They were mill towns—lined up like a row of hubcaps nailed to the side of an old toolshed, shiny in spots but with quite a few dents and scrapes picked up along time's highway. There would be a few nice houses surrounding the main square, but most of the inhabitants lived at a subsistence level and were more interested in a new pickup truck than developing a picturesque community. It was close to noon when they entered Newton.

“You know who lives in Newton, don't you?” Renny asked as they reached the city limits and the wind noise in the open car died down.

“I'm a little rusty on my Newton, North Carolina, trivia,” Jo said, taking off her cap and shaking out her hair.

“I guess you don't follow the races much in Michigan, do you?”

“Horse races?”

“No, stock cars, NASCAR.”

“Is that supposed to be a hint?”

Renny slowed to a stop at one of the two traffic lights in the sleepy town. “I'll put you out of your misery, or suspense, whichever the case may be. Newton is the home of Dale Earnhardt.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Don't say that too loud. Remember the top is down.” Renny eyed a man in blue jeans and a T-shirt who was crossing the street in front of them. “Do you see that guy's shirt?”

“The one with a black car on it.”

“That's it. The one that says ‘The Intimidator,' Earnhardt's nickname.”

“Why do they call him that?” Jo asked.

“He has a reputation for knocking other drivers off the track at 200 miles per hour, if that's what it takes to win.”

Jo thought a moment. “Anne Shirley of Green Gables is one of my inspirations. Are you trying to tell me Mr. Intimidator is one of yours?”

Renny laughed. “Not really. I'm just trying to educate you on points of local interest. Here's the restaurant.” He pulled into the freshly paved parking lot. “New asphalt. Business must be good.”

Renny and Jo sat at a table for two in front of a window with a view of the parking lot. They ordered Carolina-style pork sandwiches with slaw on the sandwich and pickles and chips on the side. The waitress brought two big clear-plastic glasses of iced tea. Renny munched in satisfaction until only a few potato chips were left on his plate.

“Do you think it's time we talked business?” he asked.

“What business?”

“About the List?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, we first discovered our common denominator at the barbecue restaurant in Moncks Corner.”

“True. What do we need to discuss?”

“Well, I'm in and you're not,” Renny began.

“So have we lost our common denominator?” Jo asked testily.

“No, no. Now, we know each other in our own way. But even though you're not a part of the List, you are the only person I can talk to. And I respect your opinion.”

“OK. What have you been thinking?”

“I'm still frustrated in my efforts to gain direct access to my family's money. Gus Eicholtz told me the approximate amount of money that has accumulated.”

“I don't want to know that,” Jo interjected.

“All right, but there is going to be a sizable distribution to the members in the next few months. I can't give you a figure, but it would be enough that I could quit my job at the law firm and, with conservative investments, never work again.”

Renny waited.

Jo completed his thought. “Then you could do what you want to do— write.”

“That was my plan. I don't want to wait twelve years for an office with a window. What do you think?” Renny popped the last potato chip into his mouth.

A part of Jo wanted to grab him by the collar and yell, “Renny, can't you see the List is a trap luring you into the same kind of paranoid greed that made your father a mean, stingy man!” But her mouth couldn't form the words, and her heart couldn't release the passion necessary to validate the warning. Instead, she said as calmly as she could, “What I think was made clear in Georgetown. No matter how much money is involved, I'm not interested. I really can't see how I could feel any differently about your involvement than I did for mine.”

Renny shrugged and looked out the window. “I guess I knew that was what you would say, but that's not a step I'm ready to take. At the least I want to get the next distribution in my hands.”

Jo sighed. “You have some time. Keep an open mind.”

“I will. Anyway, it all seems less important when I'm around you.”

“I'm glad,” Jo said seriously. “I'm very, very glad.”

From Newton it took forty minutes to drive to the Manors' bed-and-breakfast. Jo wanted to help Renny sort through his questions, and she was frustrated by the invisible gag that at times kept her from expressing what she knew to be true. Then she remembered something she heard a guest speaker say at her church: “The right word in the wrong time is just as useless as the wrong word in the right time.” Closing her eyes as the wind rushed by, she prayed, “Don't let me make either mistake.”

Renny slowed the car as they passed a fruit stand advertising locally grown apples for sale. “We're getting close. The road we're looking for is past an apple warehouse.” As they came around a bend in the road, the red Phillips Apple Barn came into view on the left. “That's it. I remember the name.” A hundred yards beyond the apple barn, Renny turned onto a narrow side road and began climbing upward. “It's somewhere toward the top of the ridge.”

They passed several houses, some brick, some wood. Renny pointed out three long, low chicken houses nestled against the hillside. “Let's hope we're not downwind from a chicken house,” Renny said. “There's nothing like the fragrance of ten thousand chickens on a hot day.”

As they climbed higher, small apple orchards began springing up on both sides of the road. An ancient stand of apple trees whose limbs looked like gnarled arthritic hands thrusting up from the earth appeared on a steep hill to the right. Rounding a corner, they came out on top of the ridge and saw a sign on the right that read, “Zion Hill Lodge.” A huge mailbox with “George Manor” painted on it sat beside a single-lane driveway.

“This is it,” Renny said.

Turning, they passed through a continuation of the ancient orchard. A small apple-shaped sign warned, “Beware of Falling Apples.”

“This is nice,” Jo said.

“There's the lodge.” Renny pointed across the side of a steep slope to the left of the driveway.

Three stories tall with cedar siding and a broad deck overlooking the orchard, the red tin-roofed Zion Hill Lodge commanded the surrounding area. They parked in a gravel lot to the side of the building. Jo took off her cap and brushed her hair.

Renny knocked on the solid wooden front door, and a petite, gray-haired woman with large, observant eyes opened it.

“Hello, I'm Renny Jacobson, and this is Jo Johnston.”

“I'm Helen. Come inside and sit down. George is downstairs getting a jar of apple butter for Daisy. We didn't want to forget it, so we'll give it to you first thing.”

South of Georgetown, two men walked slowly to the end of the weathered pier that stretched like a long finger through the surf into the deeper waters beyond the breaking waves. They passed a few fishermen, shirtless men baked such a deep bronze by the long South Carolina summer that the tattoos of mermaids and sea creatures on their forearms had almost disappeared.

“What do you think of Jacobson?” the younger asked when they reached the end of the gray planked walkway.

The older man leaned against the wooden rail, took a cigar from a pocket humidor, and stared out to sea. “Unrealized potential.”

“Potential for what?”

The first puff of cigar smoke disappeared as the afternoon breeze began to blow gently off the land. “You'll see.”

“Come on. Tell me.”

“He's a closed house waiting for a skillful hand to unlock the door.” “Closed house? Does he have more potential than me?” the younger asked.

“Don't be jealous. Each one to his assigned place. Trust me. I've not selected a successor—not yet.”

16