The Three Miss Margarets (3 page)

When she got to the parking lot after Denny finally closed down the bar, Wolf Eyes was waiting for her.

“Thought I’d drive you home,” he said, as if it was already arranged between them that he was going with her, which in a way it was. And she damn sure wasn’t going to whatever hotel he was staying at because there wasn’t one in town where some member of the staff hadn’t gone to grammar school with her, and there was just so much gossip she wanted to generate in one night. On the other hand, her place was way outside of town, which meant she’d have to keep him around long enough in the morning to get her back to her car. And the long drive out there would mean they’d have to talk and that would spoil everything. She didn’t want to know he was a dentist back home, or an insurance salesman, didn’t want to know why he’d decided to come slumming in a local joint tonight. She didn’t want to start guessing how many kids he had or why his wife didn’t come with him. Mostly she didn’t want to hear the lies he’d tell her or the ones she’d tell him. Tonight she was in a hot-air balloon floating high above everything, and if this nice stranger would just stay a stranger she could make it through the night without coming down.

So she nodded without saying a word, hoping that would give him a hint how the night should go, and followed him to his rented SUV. “Pussy-whipped trucks,” Denny called them. But it was better than a convertible. Yankees usually rented convertibles when they came to Georgia, even in November. As soon as they got south of Pennsylvania they thought they were in the tropics.

“I’m Josh,” he said, as he helped her climb into his wannabe truck.

“Laurel Selene,” she said. It was the first time they’d actually spoken to each other all night.

She told him to turn left out of the parking lot and warned him that her house was twenty minutes away in the middle of a forest. He said fine and they drove in silence for several minutes and it looked like they were gonna be quiet all the way, for which she offered up a quick thank-you-Jesus. Her balloon was nicely in place. He really wasn’t her type, but for tonight he was Lancelot and Romeo and Sir Walter Raleigh offering her his sports coat. She’d love him forever if he’d just keep his mouth shut now and not be perky in the morning.

Then he ruined everything by saying, “You’re good, you know. You and that guy you were singing with.”

“We just fool around.” She tried to shrug him off.

“You sounded pretty smooth to me. Ever think about turning pro?”

“Once—a million years ago. But we dropped it.”

“Why?”

Her balloon was sinking fast. “You always ask so many questions?”

For some reason that seemed to amuse him. “Sometimes,” he said. “So why did you drop it?”

What was he trying to do, turn this into prom night? I’m a girl you picked up in a white-trash bar, she told him silently. You don’t need to know my life story.

But out loud she said, “We were gonna go to Nashville once. Be big stars. Some guy who was staying at the resort heard us and said he wanted us to come and try out for this club he owned.”

“What happened?”

“We never got there.”

“Why?”

Didn’t he know how to talk without asking questions? What was it about him that made her keep answering them?

“We were scared shitless. So Denny got stoned and drove our pickup into an embankment on I-Eighty-five. We were lucky we weren’t killed. The good news was, that time when his family put Denny into rehab, it took. He’s been clean ever since.” The bad news was, the newly careful twelve-step-alumnus Denny never talked about leaving town again. Now he did his music in the Sportsman’s Grill, which happened to be his daddy’s bar.

Josh threw her a glance. “Where did that leave you?”

“Here.”

“You couldn’t go to Nashville without him?”

“Music was Denny’s dream, not mine.”

“What’s yours?”

“I don’t dream. I just wanted to get the hell out of town.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes to show him the conversation was over. The SUV drove smooth. Not like her ancient Camaro, which registered every bump in the road. This was like riding in a steel womb. She was starting to drift. Maybe if he’d just keep his mouth shut she could get her balloon back in the air before they got to her place.

“Before you pass out on me, where are we going?” asked the irritating voice next to her.

“I’m not gonna pass out. I was resting my eyes.”

“Uh-huh. Where are we going?”

“Stay on this road. It’ll split down either side of a chunk of land that’s shaped like a piece of pie.” For a second, she thought he gave her a strange look. But he didn’t say anything, so she figured she imagined it. “There will be a sign saying
GARRISON NATURE PRESERVE
with arrows pointing to the left and right. The piece of pie sits in the middle of the nature preserve. When you see the sign, bear right. You with me so far?”

“Yeah. I got a wedge of land shaped like a piece of pie on my left and whole lot of nature on my right. What does a nature preserve look like, by the way?”

“Trees. And there’s lots of wildlife. You’ll pass two houses on your left. The first one will be behind a big stone fence and the gate will say
GARRISON COTTAGE
big enough for you to see it in the dark. The second one will look like Scarlett O’Hara should come running down the front steps, and there will be a lot of magnolias in front of it.”

“You live in Tara?”

“I live across the highway from Tara. In the nature preserve.”

“With the wildlife.”

“I find it soothing.”

“Okay.”

“About five hundred feet past Tara, you’ll see a dirt road that crosses the highway. Turn right and go into the Nature Preserve. My house is in there. There will now be a short quiz.”

“Pass Tara, turn on the opposite side of the highway.”

“Just make sure you don’t turn on the Tara side and go into the wedge.”

“Got it. Why are you living in a nature preserve? Isn’t the whole point to preserve the place for nature?”

She sighed. The world was full of men who didn’t want to communicate. Why the hell did she have to wind up with one who did? “It’s a long story.”

“We seem to have a lot of time.”

“Not long enough. This is the South. You need a map, a scorecard, and a family Bible to follow one of our stories.”

He seemed to be satisfied with that. So just to prove she could rest her eyes for a few minutes and not fall asleep, she closed them again. This time Josh Wolf Eyes didn’t disturb her.

P
EGGY LEANED AGAINST THE WALL
and watched Maggie and Li’l Bit move around the cabin bedroom. They looked oddly graceful, like dancers in a sad ballet. For a month the room had been equipped as a makeshift hospital room, waiting for the moment when it would be needed. That moment had come, and they had done what they promised they would do. Now her two friends seemed beautiful and almost otherworldly as each brought the night to a close in her own way. Maggie finished the last prayer of her rosary, crossed herself, and bent over the figure on the bed. “Rest now, dear one,” she murmured, so softly it made Peggy’s heart ache. Li’l Bit reached across the bed to pull the sheet up, but she couldn’t make herself cover the face. Instead, she folded the sheet gently, as if she was tucking in a child. She bent over to kiss the cheek and Peggy thought she heard her whisper, “I’m sorry.” They turned to Peggy and it was her turn. She moved to the bed and said the only thing she could: “Good-bye.”

L
AUREL AWAKENED BECAUSE THE CAR
had started bumping. Which had to mean they’d turned onto the dirt road that led to her place. She shook herself and looked out the window for familiar landmarks. There was an oak with a broken branch that should be coming up, and then a hole in the dirt road that could bust your shocks. But there was no oak branch. And the ground never cut out from under them.

“Josh,” she said, “this isn’t the way to my place; you turned wrong.”

He kept on driving.

“Did you hear me? We’re going the wrong way. You turned next to Tara instead of across from it.” He slowed down but kept going. Ahead of them she could see the Justine Oaks clearly silhouetted against the sky. Suddenly he stopped the car, cut off the lights, and sat staring ahead.

“What are you doing?”

“Look there.” She followed his gaze, and there it was: the cabin. “There’s someone inside,” he said.

“You’re crazy. That old wreck has been deserted for ye—” she started to say, then trailed off because she saw what couldn’t be, but was—a faint gleam coming from the windows. Someone had turned on the lights.

It had to be kids who had broken in, or maybe tramps. Either way they’d have to report it. Which meant by noon the whole damn town would know she’d been wandering around the woods with the stranger from New York. Just in case there were two or three people left by that time who weren’t talking about her performance in the bar.

The lights went out in the cabin, and a flashlight beam passed by one of the windows, moving from the back of the cabin to the front. A second beam joined it and then a third. Three people came out and stood on the porch. And even though it was too far away and too dark to see their faces, she recognized the figures that were silhouetted by the flashlights. One was tiny and ramrod straight, one was mid-sized, and one was so tall she’d had to duck her head going through the door. The three Miss Margarets were hanging out in the cabin in the middle of the night! At least she wouldn’t have to report them to the cops. The three Miss Margarets went anywhere they wanted to. And besides, Dr. Maggie took care of the cabin. But there was a car in the drive in front of it, which meant the ladies would get in it, come down the drive, and find them.

“Josh—” she started, but before she could tell him they had to go, he had turned the SUV around much more neatly than she would have thought possible without switching on the lights, and they made their way back to the highway in darkness.

F
OR A MOMENT PEGGY THOUGHT
she heard a car pull away, but there were no headlights so she decided her mind was playing tricks on her. Neither Maggie nor Li’l Bit seemed to hear it, but then there were many things they didn’t hear these days. She looked at their weary faces. Maggie had held up beautifully all night, but now she looked so frail a puff of wind could blow her away. Li’l Bit seemed to have gotten bigger and heavier, as if grief had swelled her like a sponge. Impulsively Peggy reached out to hug her, and Li’l Bit held on for dear life. Then they each hugged Maggie, and it was partly for comfort and partly because no one could bear to leave. Peggy wanted to say something that would help, something that would be wise and important. But when she opened her mouth, all she could get out was, “It’s late; why don’t you let me drive you home?” And she wondered when the hell she’d become the practical one.

Li’l Bit shook her head, and Maggie said softly, “I think we both need to walk,” and Peggy knew there was no talking either of them out of it. So she and Maggie watched as Li’l Bit trudged back up the ridge with the light from her flashlight flickering in front of her. Then Maggie reached up to pat Peggy’s cheek and say, with a whisper of a smile, “It’ll be all right, Peggy dear, you’ll see.” And then she was gone too, picking her way through the remains of the pecan grove that had once surrounded her house, the beam from her flashlight lighting the way ahead of her. Peggy waited again until the light vanished; then she made herself leave the porch and walk to the car. But she couldn’t go just yet. She leaned against the car and stared up at the Justine Oaks without seeing them.

J
OSH DROVE IN SILENCE
, and except for telling him when to turn, Laurel kept her mouth shut. Seeing the old cabin had driven away the last wisps of her lovely high. Standing on its porch tonight were three of the four remaining heavy hitters on her ma’s hate list. Add old Lottie, and you’d have all the ones who were still alive, right there at the cabin where it all began.

According to some stories, Lottie’s family had lived in it since they were slaves on the Justine plantation. But Laurel never put much stock in that. More likely they’d moved in when Lottie’s mama and daddy started working for Dr. Maggie’s family. Now the cabin belonged to Lottie. Dr. Maggie had given it to her shortly after her own parents died. And Miss Li’l Bit had put in the dirt road that ran from the cabin to the highway. Laurel was on top of this history, because when she was a kid, her ma would get tanked and go on and on about it, for reasons Laurel didn’t understand.

Lottie had raised her daughter, Nella, in that cabin. Then Nella and her husband came back to live with Lottie and raise their daughter—until all hell broke loose and Nella’s husband died and Nella left town with the child. Then Lottie lived in the cabin on the side of the ridge alone. And now Lottie was in an advanced-care facility that was much too PC to call itself a nursing home, and the cabin was empty. At least it had been until tonight.

Chapter Three

W
ALKING HOME FROM THE CABIN
might not have been such a good idea, Maggie realized, as she began to shiver. She hadn’t dressed warmly enough, or maybe it was shock setting in. She should have let Peggy drive her. But just as she was starting to get nervous, her house was in front of her, looming up out of the darkness with the magnolia trees on either side and crowding too close. It was a disgrace the way she’d let the pruning go.

“You can make it,” she told herself. “You’ll be fine.” There was one more pecan tree ahead of her, the big one she always thought of as Lottie’s tree. Once she was past it, she’d be in the backyard. She walked under the tree, her feet crunching the rotten nuts that had fallen on the ground because she never thought of harvesting them anymore.

I
N THE OLD DAYS
when the pecans were ready to fall, Lottie’s daddy, Ralph, who was the caretaker on the farm, would hire a couple of workmen for the day. They’d spread soft old white sheets on the ground under the trees and shake the branches with poles while the nuts fell to the ground. It was Lottie’s job to climb up to the limbs the men couldn’t reach and bounce on them until the rest of the nuts came down.

One autumn when Lottie was up in the big tree working, Maggie waited until no one was watching and climbed up to help her. At first she was scared being up so high, but Lottie showed her how to brace herself against the tree trunk and she was fine.

“Look, Maggie,” Lottie said, and pointed down at the world below them. There were the sweet-potato fields, her mama’s kitchen garden, and the rest of the pecan grove, all spread out at her feet. This was glory indeed. Up until that moment it had belonged to Lottie alone, but now Maggie was sharing it. Life, she felt, didn’t get much better than that.

They began bouncing on the branches, and soon the pecans fell like large green hailstones. They were getting the job done in half the time it usually took Lottie, and Maggie was feeling terribly proud, when a scream cut through the still morning air. Mama had seen Maggie in the tree and came running from the house, yelling that it wasn’t safe. Ralph, seeing his home and his family’s only source of income disappearing before his eyes, began a frantic climb up the tree to get Maggie. Because he looked so scared, she came down to where he could reach her, and soon she was in her weeping mama’s arms. No one seemed to notice that there was another little girl in the tree.

Years later, Maggie realized Ralph had never said it wasn’t safe for his own daughter to shake the pecans down because he was afraid to, and she wondered what had gone through Lottie’s mind while she was up in the tree, alone and ignored. But at the time, Maggie looked up at Lottie still high in her perch and took it as a token of her friend’s total superiority to her humble self. Lottie was the leader in all their games, bigger, stronger, and smarter than she, so it made sense that Lottie was allowed to stay up in the sky, mistress of all she surveyed, while Maggie was brought back to the ground.

After the nuts were gathered, the men took them to the kitchen where Lottie’s mama, Charlie Mae, set Maggie and Lottie to the task of hulling them and picking out the meat.

To Maggie the kitchen was a place of alchemy where Charlie Mae took raw ingredients and turned them into high rich cakes and pies oozing with fruit and spice. “That child should have been born a darky,” Mama said, when talking about Maggie’s fascination with all things culinary. But that wasn’t the only reason Maggie helped. The more work she did, the sooner Lottie would be finished with her chores and they could ramble off on their endless rounds of the farm and the forests that surrounded it.

Lottie hated kitchen chores. Worst of all she hated hulling pecans, because it was fussy work, and her hands were too big for it. But the results were worth it because when the nuts lay in a mound on the wooden counter, Charlie Mae would use them in the fruitcakes Maggie’s mama gave as Christmas presents every year. The recipe had been in Mama’s family for generations, and something must have gotten left out, because the cakes were nasty. But Mama handed them out like crown jewels.

The finished fruitcakes might be awful, but the raw batter was ambrosia to Lottie, who loved sweets. The girls had an elaborate system worked out for stealing it. They waited until Charlie Mae had beaten the butter, sugar, and eggs into a pale yellow fluff. Then Maggie would find the sharpest knife in the drawer and say, “Charlie Mae, let me chop the fruit.” While Charlie Mae dropped everything to grab the knife away from her, Lottie would stick a cup into the bowl, scoop out a heaping mound of the rich mess, and hide it in the pantry. Later they would retrieve it and share the sugary goo. Maggie was never sure whether it was the crime they pulled off or the booty itself that pleased Lottie so much. They both knew Lottie never could have done it on her own. Maggie was Lottie’s protection against Charlie Mae’s belt. If Charlie Mae had caught Lottie messing up Miss Carolyn’s Christmas cakes she would have beaten her, but if Maggie was in on it they’d get off with a tongue lashing.

So it had started way back then, Lottie using Maggie to get what she couldn’t get on her own, and Maggie accepting it because, for reasons that were impossible to understand, the world was set up so Lottie needed her.

T
HE PECAN TREE
was behind Maggie. It wouldn’t be long now. A minute later she reached the six steps that led up to the back porch of the house. Using the railing more than she usually had to, she climbed them and let herself in.

She went through the kitchen into the living room, where she turned on the gas logs she’d had installed in her fireplace. A real fire might be romantic, but at her age she wasn’t about to mess with kindling and ashes. She collapsed gratefully into her old wingback chair. From her bed on the floor her dog, an aged sheepdog and chow mix, got up and moved over to lie down on Maggie’s feet. Laverne’s litter mates, Patty and Maxine, had gone on to the great front lawn in the sky, and for the first time Peggy wasn’t trying to con her into taking in any more strays. She was probably afraid a young dog would outlive Maggie. The good Lord knew Maggie felt old right now, old and aching with tears she didn’t have the energy to cry. But it was all right. Because she’d seen everything through as Lottie would have wanted her to. Over the years she had failed Lottie, because there were things she couldn’t control. But she hadn’t failed tonight. There was comfort in that.

J
OSH TURNED THE
SUV into Laurel’s drive. They passed under the hanging oak branch and he swerved neatly to avoid the huge hole, while Laurel tried to make her mind a blank. A lost cause; it was now full of the cabin and memories of old Lottie.

I
N THE BEGINNING
, she had liked Lottie. When her ma was on a bender, lying on her bed too drunk to work, Lottie always seemed to know it. And just about the time that the groceries were running low and Laurel was getting really scared, there would be a knock on the door and Lottie would be standing there with a sack of sweet corn and beans from her garden so there would be something to fix for supper. Sometimes when Sara Jayne took off for a week or two, there would be tomato sandwiches dripping with mayonnaise or biscuits and cornbread wrapped up in a clean napkin.

“Thought you could use this,” Lottie would say, without smiling, and turn and leave as Laurel called out
thank you
to her back. Many times the woman just left the food on the back stoop, but Laurel always knew who it was from. She would bring the sack into the house and tear into the sandwiches or the cornbread like a starving thing, which by then she usually was. Even more comforting than the food was the idea that someone had thought to feed her.

Eventually her ma found out about Lottie’s missions of mercy, and she went crazy. She ranted and raved that she didn’t want Laurel taking anything from that nigger, and if Laurel did it again Sara Jayne would take a switch to her. There wasn’t anything unusual about Sara Jayne exploding like that; her mother’s moods were unpredictable at best. But the intensity of her fury was strange. Sara Jayne was usually a tearful, self-pitying drunk, stroking her misfortunes like pets.

The mystery was cleared up when Laurel was six. By then she was old enough to understand what it meant to be a bastard and why the other kids called her one. So Sara Jayne told her what had happened at the cabin and why Lottie was to be hated.

The next time an offering appeared on the back stoop, Laurel carried it back across the highway and up the long dirt road to Lottie’s cabin. Lottie came out and stood in front of her. She was a big woman, with long arms and legs and strong hands. Her dark eyes were impassive as Laurel handed her a basket of newly picked peaches and said, “We don’t need food from you. Don’t bring it again,” and fled.

That wasn’t the only time she turned down help. Her ma had told her the three Miss Margarets were the enemy, too. So when Miss Peggy offered Laurel a job at the resort she refused. When Miss Li’l Bit said she could help get her a scholarship for college, she said no, thank you. And when Sara Jayne was racking up astronomical medical bills in the long months it took her to finally die, Laurel never let Dr. Maggie treat her for free. Which meant that in addition to being badly educated and without any options for the future she was up to her ass in debt. But she’d been a loyal daughter, her ma’s second-in-command in the dumb, sad war their adversaries hadn’t even known they were fighting.

T
HEY PULLED UP
in front of her house. Josh looked out his window at the surrounding trees.

“This it?” he asked.

“Welcome to my ancestral home,” she said.

“W
HY DO YOU KEEP ON LIVING HERE
? You hate this place,” Denny had said once, right after he got sober. He was seeing a therapist in his rehab program, and “confronting issues” was part of the cure. Fortunately, he’d gotten over it.

“I own it, remember?”

“You could sell it for a fortune to some rich jerk from Atlanta.”

“I’ve gotten kinda partial to it.”

That wasn’t true; she disliked everything about the house. A small rainstorm could wipe out her driveway, making it an impassable trail of red clay muck. A medium-sized rainstorm could knock a tree branch down on her one power line and wipe out essentials like the lights, the well pump, the television, and—God help her in summertime—her precious AC. Squirrels got themselves trapped in the crawl space under her roof and died horribly; mice fried themselves chewing electrical wires, and one day they’d probably burn the place down. And then there were the memories of Sara Jayne, drunk and living or finally sober but dying.

In spite of all that, she stayed. Because the place was a reminder that being a loser was not necessarily in her DNA. It was a symbol of the one battle her family had won. And living in it was her way of giving the finger to Garrison Gardens, the trust that now ran them, and to the town that sucked up to them.

J
OSH GOT OUT OF THE CAR
and looked around at the surrounding trees. “Jesus, it’s quiet!” he said.

“That’s the point of living in the bosom of Mother Nature.”

“Don’t you go out of your mind?”

“I’m a simple country girl. I love it.”

He shot her a look that said
bullshit.
Obviously, in spite of all her attempts to put him off, he’d spent at least a few seconds wondering who she was. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The light sexy mood of the night had long since shattered. She probably should hand back his expensive sports jacket, which now smelled of beer, get rid of him, and find some other way to go to work in the morning. It certainly would be the smart thing to do. So she said, “Why don’t you come on in?”

B
ACK IN HER BEDROOM AT LAST
, Li’l Bit pulled on a freshly washed nightgown and buttoned it all the way to the neck. Her discarded clothes were in the hamper. Her shoes were on the rack in her closet. The sink in the bathroom had been rinsed, and she’d lined up her toothpaste next to the brush. She walked out of the bathroom and got into bed. It was over. There was nothing more to be done. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep. But she couldn’t because she heard the sound of someone sobbing. And when she reached up and felt the wetness on her cheek, she realized she was crying.

W
ITH A BOURBON BOTTLE
in her hand and a bag of dog biscuits tucked under her arm, Peggy went from room to room turning on all the lights. The dogs followed her in a pack, silent for once, all twenty-four eyes fixed on the treats. Finally, the house was as bright as she could make it. She moved into the den, selected a CD from her stack of golden oldies, and popped it in the player. The sound of Frank Sinatra filled the air. She turned to the dogs. “We’re gonna celebrate,” she told them fiercely. “We’re gonna have a goddamn celebration.”

T
HE FIRE WAS HOT
, but Maggie wasn’t aware of being warm at last. She was back in a world when the pecans fell like green hailstones so the men below could harvest them, and Mama’s magnolias were always cut back to manicured perfection. Back to the time when Lottie was slender and strong and they were young.

W
HEN IT CAME TO SEX
, it was a good rule, Laurel decided, not to put yourself in the position where you had to follow through. Even though the TV talk shows all said a girl had the right to change her mind right up to the last moment, she felt there was a point at which it seemed like bad sportsmanship to back off. Unfortunately, defining this point had always been dicey for her. Tonight she had missed it. Because at the moment when Josh Wolf Eyes began kissing her, her thoughts had been elsewhere—about twenty-five years back in the past, to be precise. Not that Josh was lacking in the kissing department. Her early assessment of that mouth had been right. And when they finally got naked, he definitely knew how to use his hands. On a scale of one to ten Josh got a nine and a half.