The Three Miss Margarets (20 page)

Sara Jayne came out of the kitchen and moved to the sofa. “Hey,” she said in a loud whisper, as she leaned over her. Laurel could smell booze breath. “Come on, I know you’re not asleep. You heard me crashing around in there.” She sat on the sofa near Laurel’s feet and put something on the floor in front of her. Laurel didn’t look to see what it was.

Sara Jayne started to laugh. “Want to hear a joke? Not a one of them was going to come.” She took a drink from the glass she’d brought with her from the kitchen. “Your skinny little schoolteacher started saying something about dinner plans before I even got a word out. That old bitch that runs the library nearly slammed the receiver in my ear; your pal’s mother acted like she’d never heard of any party. And your Mrs. Peters was so happy when I said it was off, I thought she was gonna start crying.” She laughed again, more quietly. “I embarrassed myself for nothing.” She reached over and shook Laurel. “Come on, sit up. I’ve got something for you.”

It was the only way she’d go away. Laurel sat up. Her mother leaned down to the floor, brought up a plate, and handed it to her. It was a hunk of cake. Her ma had hacked it out so there was a whole rose on it. None of the little ridges that made the petals had gotten squashed on the bike ride home the way she’d been afraid they would. It sat there, big and pink and perfect.

“Eat it,” said her mother. “No point in letting it go to waste.”

Laurel put it down on the floor and curled up in a ball on the corner of the sofa as far away from her mother as she could get.

Sara Jayne shrugged. “Be that way. I’m gonna have me a party.” She found her guitar, which was leaning against the wall, and went out on the porch.

At first she was just strumming, not playing anything, just weaving together snatches of music she knew. Then the music worked itself into “Happy Birthday.” She played it through and then started messing around with it, making it sad and lonely like an old country song. Then everything was quiet. And then, the way Laurel knew it would be, the next sound she heard was her ma crying. She lay in the darkness until the crying finally stopped and she was sure there were no more sounds coming from the porch. Then she went into the bedroom and took the pillow and blanket off her mother’s bed and went outside.

Sara Jayne was asleep, lying stretched out on the porch swing. As Laurel wedged the pillow under her head, her mother murmured, “It wouldn’t be like this if he was here. He loved us, baby.” Laurel put the blanket over her and went back inside.

Chapter Twenty

L
AUREL WALKED BACK
to her desk, looked down at the sheaf of yellow legal-pad pages covered with Reverend Malbry’s spindly handwriting, and admitted defeat. There was no way she could do any more work on the loopy article. She’d have to come in on Sunday to finish it. She put it away and left the office.

T
HE
S
PORTSMAN’S
G
RILL WAS CLOSED
, but Denny’s truck was parked outside. Laurel turned into the shopping center parking lot, pulled up next to the truck, and looked in the front window of the bar. Denny was inside, washing the floor. He hurried to the front when she started banging on the door.

“A second pair of hands,” he said. “Get you a mop. I’m doing the ladies’ room next.”

“Don’t you have someone to do this kind of thing?” she asked, as they swished soap and water over the bathroom floor.

“He quit. Good help is hard to find these days. Daddy’s always going on about it.”

“No one out there willing to do demeaning work for starvation wages?”

“You’re not being fair. Daddy saves the demeaning work for blood relatives.”

She mopped in silence for a while. Then she said, “Did I ever tell you about the time my Grandma McCready came to see Ma and me?” she asked.

She could see him shift gears into his supportive mode. “No, I don’t believe you have.”

She powdered the sink with Ajax and began to scrub, keeping her eyes on the buildup around the faucet. “Ma’s father threw her out when she told him she was knocked up and the daddy had gotten himself killed before making it right with the Lord. My grandfather was a deacon in his church, and the way he read the Bible the right thing to do was to cut off his seventeen-year-old daughter to fend for herself without a penny and a baby on the way. Then one day the old man got the word from God that he was wrong about the cutting-off thing, and in fact it was his Christian duty to forgive. So he sent his wife to give Ma the good news. The only hitch was Ma had to say she was—well, they wouldn’t use the word
raped;
they said
forced.
So she wasn’t a whore, after all, just a victim. Guess they figured, what with my daddy being dead and all, there wouldn’t be an opposing point of view. She told them to go to hell.”

“Good for her.”

“It must have been hard to do that, you know? She must have wanted to go home so much. She was just a kid herself, waiting tables, trying to keep care of me. . . .” She took a long pause. “I’m just saying, my ma—she wasn’t all bad, you know?”

“No one ever said she was.”

“I do. All the time.”

“She wasn’t exactly mother of the year either.”

“She was weak.”

“She was a drunk, Laurel.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t have been, if he had lived.”

“Drunks always have an excuse—”

“You don’t know what it did to her, when he died the way he did.”

“—and the children of drunks always have an excuse for them.”

“I’m honest about her.”

“As much as you can be.”

“I know what she was, Denny. But she didn’t start out that way.”

“There’s a statute of limitations on how long you can feel sorry for yourself.”

“She couldn’t get past what happened. I think it was because she could never be sure. She’d go on and on about how that man loved her and he had gotten a big new job to support us and he never would have done what they said. But she had to twist her mind into knots to keep believing it. Maybe if she could have accepted it—” She stopped and threw the scrub brush into the sink.

“—she wouldn’t have been a mean drunk who treated you like shit. Is that what you were gonna say?” Denny asked.

She walked out of the ladies’ room with him behind her. He sat her on a stool at the bar and poured her a soda. She wanted a beer, but it went against Denny’s religion to give anyone a drink when they were upset. “Why are you going back over all this stuff?” he asked.

She took a swig of the soda. He’d given her RC, and she wished it were a Coke. “Josh, the writer, said when he interviewed Vashti he thought she was holding something back. Now he figures it was about her being sick. But when he said it, do you know the first damn thing that came into my head?
Maybe Ma was right. Maybe the night my father died it didn’t go like everyone said.
Can you believe I started up with that crap again, after all this time?”

“Unfinished business, sugar.”

“I don’t want to be crazy, Denny. I spent my life with a crazy lady.”

“Maybe you’re still not sure it’s all that crazy.”

“I know what happened that night. Everyone within a two-hundred-mile radius around here knows.”

“Okay.” But he was waiting for more.

“When I was little I used to believe her. I bought all of it: He did love us, he didn’t kill Richard, he wasn’t there with Nella for his nightly piece of ass, and the three Miss Margarets lied. I believed he wasn’t really dead, he was just waiting somewhere, and someday he’d come back and marry Ma. He was gonna bring us presents: mine was a Barbie doll, and she was gonna get M&M’s with peanuts. She loved those.” She paused. “Say something.”

“What do you want, Laurel?”

The question caught her off guard. “I don’t know . . .” she started, then the words spilled out. “I want to stop being stuck. I want to stop caring about things that happened before I was born. I want someone to swear to me that I’m not like my mother.”

He watched her for a moment. Then he said, “I think it’s time you took the box home.”

It took Laurel a second to register what he’d said. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking for a while.”

“I don’t want the damn thing right now.”

“I can’t keep it in my daddy’s storeroom forever.”

“I didn’t realize it was crowding you.”

“You gotta look at it. Or don’t. Throw it in the trash. But do something. She’s been gone a long time.”

“I’ll take it. Just not today. Okay?” He waited for a minute; then he nodded and went back to the ladies’ room to clean the commode. She finished the soda and left.

W
HEN
L
AUREL ARRIVED AT HER HOUSE
, the SUV was already there and Josh Wolf Eyes was sitting on the porch steps.

“Is that a real outhouse in the back?” he asked.

“Not only is it the genuine article, it is a historic landmark. An honest-to-God cement one-holer as put up by the CCC boys during the Depression. Did you get a look at the workmanship on the inside?”

“Actually, that didn’t occur to me.”

“Well, it was the deluxe model. I’m very uppity about having one.”

“I’m sure.” He was silent, working his way up to something. “I saw a whole lot of deer about fifteen minutes ago.”

“That’ll happen when you’re in the woods.”

He got up and started pacing around her front yard. “I had my talk with the three Miss Margarets.”

“And it was like trying to kick your way through a couple of miles of wet chiffon.”

“Nice image. They gave me some of the worst coffee I’ve ever had in my life and then—well, if there’s anything you want to know about what it was like for a young female doctor to establish a practice here in the thirties, just ask me.”

“I see.”

“I’m also up on old roses and camellias.”

“Bet there isn’t too much you don’t know about the Charles Valley Animal Rescue either. Did the subject of Vashti come up at all?”

“I tried. They let me know that they didn’t feel inclined to talk about anything other than her many accomplishments. They were very polite about it.”

“Oh, always.”

“After that, I went to see Vashti’s grandmother at her nursing home. They wouldn’t let me near her. The supervisor seemed to know I was writing a story.”

“News travels in small towns. Maybe when everyone’s calmed down in a couple of weeks you can try again.”

“No, I can’t.” He stopped pacing and sat back down on the steps. “I had a call from my agent yesterday. Vashti’s obituary was in
The New York Times
. He wanted to know when I’m planning to let him see some pages, since obviously I’m not going to be talking to her. And I do have a first draft finished.” He sighed. “He’s a nice boy, my agent. He’s only twelve, but he’s smart. I gave him a song-and-dance about wanting to get some more background down here before I do my final edit. He said I was stalling.”

“Why? Are you scared?”

“That’s the theory laid out by the wunderkind.”

“After all the writing you’ve done? Come on.”

“I write pieces for magazines—they run five thousand words, tops. This is a book. And not a book the world is panting for. I have been working on it for a year and a half. That’s a hell of a long time to be out of commission in my business. Especially if you’re carrying my alimony payments.” He paused. “And I’m an old guy in a kid’s game. Do you know how young most of the writers are who do what I do?”

“What difference does that make? You’re not a movie star.”

“I want to get out before they throw me out, Laurel.” He took a deep breath. “It’s not just that I want the fucking book to be good, I
need
it to be good. I’m scared shitless.”

“When are you going back?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That soon?”

“I want to do one final edit. Then I’ve got to send the manuscript to my agent and see what happens.” The sun was starting to set; the trees were black against a glowing orange sky. He watched for a moment. She could tell he didn’t want to look at her. “Speaking of which,” he said, “what you told me, the story about your father and Grady killing Richard. I want to use that. I’ll say it was just a rumor, nothing substantiated. Will you be all right with that?”

A few days ago she would have been angry. But she’d told Denny she wanted to let go.

“Go ahead,” she said. “It’s time I stopped trying to protect a dead man I never met.”

They sat in silence and watched the sky do its thing.

“It
is
beautiful here,” he said.

“It has its moments.”

They were silent again. “You could call me sometime,” he said finally. He turned to her, and his eyes were soft in the fading light. “Or you could come see me.”

“You want me to come to New York City?”

“We don’t have any historic outhouses. But the sunsets are spectacular because the pollution from New Jersey refracts the rays.” He looked away again. “Just a thought.”

“I may take you up on it,” she said.

“Really?” He sounded downright eager.

“I’ll think about it.” The idea of being in New York City with Josh showing her around was so appealing it was frightening. “Have you ever had grits?” she asked.

“That would be the white paste they put on the plate with my breakfast eggs at the resort until I told them not to, right?”

“I fix mine with cheese. If you’re game, I was planning to have them for supper.”

“I’d like that.” But he didn’t move. She leaned up against him. For a moment she thought of trying to explain to him that he’d not seen the best of her, because the things he brought up were hurtful and she really could be a lot nicer. She also thought of telling him she was sorry he was leaving. But then he put his arm around her, so she decided, for once, that she would leave well enough alone.

He wasn’t crazy about the grits, she could tell. But he loved the fried fish she fixed to go with them. And after he helped her wash the dishes, they didn’t have any discussion about him going back to his hotel.

The next morning she was up and dressed when he came into her kitchen. She poured him a cup of coffee and placed a manila folder full of papers in front of him.

“What’s this?” he asked.

She made herself busy spreading butter on some toast. “Those are some things I’ve written. I want to know what you think.”

He groaned. “Please don’t do this.”

“You’re a professional writer. You have to know what’s good.”

“I don’t, I know what I like. I’m not a judge.”

“Just be honest. That’s all I want.”

“Shit.”

But he took the folder and started to read. For a while she stayed in the kitchen with him, but he said, without looking up, “I can feel you staring—get lost.” So she went outside with her coffee and tried to tell herself she hadn’t made a pathetic fool of herself. Just when she was about to run inside, grab the papers from him, and throw them in the trash, he came out.

“When did you write this?” he asked.

“The short story about the kid throwing the birthday party was when I was in college. The other pieces were for the newspaper, human-interest stuff. Hank never published any of it.”

“He’s as stupid as he looks.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that? You really liked them?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Because I can take it if you didn’t. I can take criticism—you haven’t seen that side of me—but I can.”

“Laurel, I think you can write. You’ve got a nice way with language. You’re funny. What can I say? I liked what I read, but it’s just an opinion. And don’t you dare cry on me. Not after being such a hard-ass all this time.”

After he left, she drove herself over to McGee’s. Denny was sitting in his usual booth, eating an order of raisin biscuits.

“I want the box,” she told him.