The Three Miss Margarets (8 page)

Inside the house Petula began the frantic barking that signaled that the phone was ringing. Li’l Bit hadn’t even heard it. Her hearing was not what it used to be, which was not always a bad thing. It could be a wonderful excuse when she didn’t want to answer her phone. Like now. She heaved herself out of her chair and walked slowly inside. By the time she reached the kitchen, Petula had stopped barking. But the red light on her answering machine was flashing. Now there was no escape. With a shaky hand she reached out and pushed the button on the machine.

“Li’l Bit?” Maggie’s soft low voice came at her and waited for an answer. “Li’l Bit, are you there? I do wish you’d get the loud ring put on your phone. Or at least get one of those cordless things to carry out to the porch.” There was another pause. Then Maggie, sounding painfully weary, said, “I’ve just had a call from Ed, Li’l Bit. He wants to come by and see all of us later today. I told him to meet us at your place. He seems to know we were at the cabin last night.”

Chapter Eight

D
ENNY DROVE IN SILENCE
, waiting for Laurel to talk. He was giving her her “space,” or some such garbage he’d picked up in a twelve-step meeting. It drove her nuts when he did stuff like that.

“Don’t you have any normal curiosity at all?” she finally demanded.

“You suggesting I should pry into the intimate details of your life?”

“I would, in a heartbeat.”

“I’m a better person than you are. Besides, I know you’re gonna tell me all about it.”

“See, that’s why no one likes you.”

“Because I’m a better person than you are?”

“Because you’re a know-it-all.”

“Only when it comes to you, sugar.”

He drove on in silence. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“He’s a writer. Works on big magazines like
Vanity Fair
and
People,
” she said.

If Denny was impressed he didn’t show it. “Sounds like he should be right up your alley.”

“Oh, yeah. Want to know why he took me home last night? He’s writing a story about Vashti Johnson, and he knew who I was.”

Denny smiled. “Didn’t look like that was what was on his mind at the Grill. Sure you’re not just being paranoid?”

“Okay, he says he didn’t know then. But he recognized my name from those damn books at my house. He’s done research on Vashti and her mom and why they left town. He knows about my daddy.”

Denny stayed silent, which was smart. When they were small she used to beat up any kid who mentioned her father.

The little strip mall where McGee’s Restaurant was located was coming up. “Stop and let me get some coffee,” she said.

Denny drove into the mall parking lot, but he wasn’t happy about it. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Lotta cars in front of the place this morning.”

Of course, as soon as he said that it became a matter of pride to go in. “You afraid they’ll be talking about me?”

“You were . . . having fun last night.”

“It won’t be the first time I’ve gone somewhere and stopped the conversation.”

“You’ll be late to work.”

“Hank’ll live.”

“Looking for a fight this morning, sugar?” he asked softly. Then, when she didn’t answer, “Your New Yorker isn’t coming back?”

“I hope not.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t.” And that made her want to scream. “Don’t you ever get tired of living in a town with people who’ve known you since you were drooling?”

“Laurel Selene, suppose you tell me what’s really got you going this morning.”

And because she desperately wanted to talk about it, and because he was Denny who came to get her after a Friday night fling had left her stranded, she told him about Vashti dying. And as soon as he recovered from that piece of news she told him about seeing the three Miss Margarets.

“They were there at the cabin? You sure?”

“I was too far away to see their faces—but it was them.”

“What the hell were they doing there?”

“I don’t know. But I’d sure like to find out.”

He watched her for a moment. “Lotta old shit will get stirred up, won’t it, Laurel?”

She shrugged. “Ma’s gone. No one will even care.”

He gave her a look that said he knew better, but he left it alone. “You still want that coffee?”

“What the hell, I’ll make a pot at work.”

“Good idea.” He drove back to the highway and took her to her car. As she started to get out he stopped her. “You gonna tell Hank about seeing the three Miss Margarets?”

“Ed knows about it. I’ll see what he does with it.”

“Let it lie, Laurel.”

“I can handle whatever comes up. I’m not Ma.”

“I wasn’t thinking about you. They’re old ladies, sugar.”

E
D HAD SOUNDED SERIOUS
on the phone, Maggie decided, as she headed for her morning shower. But Ed always thought he was more important than he was. She had never liked him much even when he was a child. Back then, he’d been an unpleasant little boy who liked to bully the younger children, but screamed like a banshee whenever she had to give him a shot. He’d married that twit Cathy Sue, who was tough enough to be the perfect wife for him, and then he’d cheated on her with Laurel—who wasn’t tough at all, no matter how hard the poor thing tried to be. Maggie sighed the way she always did when she thought of Laurel McCready. Let Li’l Bit say all she wanted that the girl wasn’t their responsibility; they all knew better. But when they could have done something, they’d been too scared.

Maggie got into the shower and let the hot water beat against her tight muscles, loosening them enough so she could turn her head to the right. Mobility on her left side was a thing of the past. She had gotten so much older than she ever dreamed of being. If anyone had told her when she was young that she would be this person, she wouldn’t have believed it.

W
HEN MAGGIE LEFT HOME
for college she was convinced she’d never forget Lottie or be happy again. She was right and wrong. She didn’t forget Lottie, or the guilt she felt for what had happened. But eventually, because it wasn’t in her not to be, she was happy again. It just took a while.

In the beginning she was in too much pain to even think about being in love. But finally she started to heal and had a couple of intense crushes she didn’t dare act on. In her senior year there was a girl named Jessie, who wanted Maggie to room with her in Paris after graduation. Maggie thought she was getting other signals too, but she didn’t have the courage to find out. Later on, when she was in medical school, she heard via a discreet grapevine about places to go where she might meet other young women like herself, but the risks still seemed too high. Or perhaps the timing wasn’t right.

When she went home for visits, she caught glimpses of Lottie, who now lived in her own place with James, but their paths never crossed. Lottie’s father had died, and Charlie Mae had gone to live with Lottie to take care of the baby while Lottie worked. The little cabin at the bottom of the ridge was empty. Maggie’s mother wrote to her at school when Lottie had a son and named him after James. Later she wrote again when Lottie had twins who were lost at birth. Maggie wrote her parents an angry letter blaming Dr. Brewster for not giving Lottie proper prenatal care, but she didn’t try to get in touch with Lottie herself.

Then Lottie wrote to her. In the painstaking Palmer handwriting she and Maggie had learned together, she wrote about her son and working at the resort and the vegetable garden she’d put in behind her house. And Maggie understood that Lottie was reaching out because their friendship had mattered to her too. And Maggie was grateful. She wrote back a chatty letter in handwriting that had deteriorated in school to a fashionable scrawl.

After college, Maggie announced that she was going to become a doctor. Her mama was dismayed, and her daddy was bewildered. But she was their darling Doodlebug, so they got together the money to pay her way through the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia and breathed a big sigh of relief when she came back south to practice in Atlanta. She was lucky enough to find a young male doctor who was willing to let her work with him, so she actually had a few patients. And if there were times when she thought that loneliness would swamp her, she usually managed to get busy and the feelings went away.

Until she met Catherine. It happened at a Christmas party thrown by some interns from Emory. She fell for brooding Mediterranean looks, smart brown eyes, thick hair that curled uncontrollably in the heat of summer or passion, a quick temper, and an even quicker laugh. Catherine introduced her to Catholicism and ravioli. And she reintroduced Maggie to fun. They never had a dime—Catherine was a nurse and made even less than Maggie—but no one else they knew had money either.

They moved in together and found a circle of friends, other young women who had come to the city to get away from small towns and families that would never accept a lesbian neighbor or daughter. “We’ve got our tribe,” Catherine said. They still lived an underground life. Even in Atlanta, the threat to careers and reputations if they were discovered was an unspoken reality. But for the majority of the “tribe,” the sense of freedom was exhilarating. And they would have agreed with Catherine when she said their lives were perfect. Most of the time Maggie believed it. But sometimes late at night, when she couldn’t sleep, she knew there was another shoe waiting to drop.

Then one evening, the phone call came from Lottie. In a voice as dry as dead autumn leaves, she told Maggie how Millie’s little boy George had died.

“We need a doctor here, Maggie,” she said. “We need a real one who will take care of folks.” There was no need for Lottie to remind Maggie that being a doctor had been her dream. Or that she had dreamed it for the sake of children like George.

Maggie looked around her tiny apartment and thought it had never seemed as warm as it did at that moment. Every piece of cheap furniture was loaded with charm. She looked at Catherine, sipping a glass of dark red wine as she washed up after their supper.

“Oh, Lottie,” she said softly.

“Millie’s young one was only thirteen,” said the relentless voice on the other end of the phone.

And Maggie knew the other shoe had dropped.

Catherine said she was crazy. She said it would be the end of them. Maggie said she would come to Atlanta for weekends. She said she was a doctor and she had to go where she was needed.

“If the rednecks in that hick town knew the truth about you they wouldn’t let you practice on their dogs. They’d stone you in the village square.”

Maggie admitted she’d have to be careful.

“Careful?” said Catherine. “You’ll be lying for the rest of your life.”

The night before Maggie left, they fought again. “It’s because of Lottie,” Catherine stormed. “You’re doing this to us because of her.”

Maggie tried to explain Charles Valley to her city-bred lover. She talked about the old pecan trees and the fruitcake recipe that had been in her family for generations. She told Catherine about the fields where her father still grew his sweet-potato crop, and the way you could smell Mama’s magnolias all over the farm in spring. But the pecan trees were the ones she had climbed with Lottie, and they had read Mama’s magazines together sitting under the magnolias. Catherine was no fool, and she sensed Maggie was leaving out crucial details.

She said Maggie was committing emotional suicide. Maggie tried to keep it light, but secretly she thought Catherine was right. She just didn’t have any other choice. So she went home.

T
HE WATER IN THE SHOWER
had run cold. Maggie got out and started dressing. She wanted to get to Li’l Bit’s before Peggy did, and she had to run an errand first.

Chapter Nine

T
HE LEMONADE FOR
M
AGGIE
was already made, so Li’l Bit brewed tea for herself. In a way she was glad it was too early to call Peggy. It would be good to have some time with Maggie alone. Peggy was soft; she gave in to her doubts and fears. But Maggie was a tough old bird, as tough as Li’l Bit herself, probably the only person in Charles Valley who was. Li’l Bit had sensed that almost from the first time they met, back when she was still a teenager and Maggie had just come home.

L
I’L
B
IT HAD HEARD
about Maggie over the years; a girl who went off to college to become a lady doctor was bound to get herself talked about in Charles Valley. But the ten-year age difference between them was big enough that their paths had not crossed.

After Maggie came home, she was busy establishing her practice, or trying to. And Li’l Bit was busy being miserable. Adolescence hit her with all its force after Harrison Banning retreated from their nightly sessions on the porch. She discovered to her horror that she was just as ridiculous as other girls her age. The only difference was, when she developed a wild unrequited crush on a boy, she had no friends to bare her broken heart to.

Dressed by her mother in fussy dresses and ruffles, with her outsized feet encased in fashionable Cuban heels, she walked through the hallways of her school alone, a large square girl whose watery blue eyes peered at the world from behind thick glasses.

She was aware, dimly, through the mists of self-absorption, that Dr. Maggie, as she was now called by everyone, was back home and wanted to start a clinic. Harrison was trying to help her. There was a time when her father would have told Li’l Bit all the details, holding forth at the dinner table until his wife declared herself ready to die of boredom. But Harrison seemed to be in retreat more and more these days. He ate his supper silently and quickly; long gone were the days of seconds on dessert and compliments to Millie. After the meal he left the parlor to his wife and his daughter and went off on aimless rambles around the property. Hitler had begun his mischief-making in Europe, and everyone talked about America getting into the war—or being sucked into it, depending on the speaker’s point of view. Even Mama listened to the news on the radio. But Harrison went outside and wandered.

Every night Li’l Bit went upstairs to the attic to look out the window and watch him as he circled the lawn and threaded his way through what had once been an old pear orchard until he reached a pond at the side of the property. She watched him through the tree branches as he stood at the edge of the water, staring off into space while the sun set. Some nights he stayed there until the evening gray sky turned dark. Then he would turn and she would strain to see him as he made his way back to his house, a lonely figure whose only companion was his daughter, watching him from above. It felt like she was spying, but since he had abandoned the porch this was her only contact with him.

Then, on a hot Monday afternoon in the fall, after school had started for her senior year, she came home to find the driveway full of cars. Her first thought was that Mama’s garden club was meeting at the house again, and if they stayed late Daddy would be angry and there would be a fight. But then Millie opened the back door, her eyes red from crying, and behind her in the kitchen the counters and the table were loaded with covered dishes and platters of food in china patterns that weren’t part of any set they had ever owned. The minister from Mama’s church appeared in the doorway with a crowd of people around him. She had a brief flash of thinking Daddy was really going to hate this party if Reverend Davis was there. But Reverend Davis wasn’t smiling like it was a party.

The group around him parted and someone murmured “poor child,” while the minister made his way to her and took her hand in his big sweaty one. He hadn’t liked her father any more than Harrison liked him, and she was pretty sure his feelings for her were the same, so she knew something was very, very wrong even before he told her that her daddy had died. It had happened early that morning, but they hadn’t known until after she went to school. She hadn’t been called all day because her mother hadn’t wanted to disturb her, Reverend Davis said, as if it were a wonderful thing Mama had done.

She tried to tell the minister he was wrong; she’d seen her father walking back from the pond the night before and he was fine. She tried to say that something as big and total as death just couldn’t happen so fast without any warning, and her daddy would never leave her forever without saying good-bye. But people started swarming around her, saying she should sit down, and she couldn’t tell them that she didn’t need to, she just needed some way to make the words they were throwing at her make sense.

Then suddenly a strong little hand was on her arm, turning her away from everyone, and a pretty doll-like little face was inches away from hers, and Dr. Maggie was saying in her low voice, “Miss Banning, this is very sudden, I know, but I think your father had been ill for some time. I told him he should make an appointment with his doctor but I’m afraid he didn’t listen to me.”

The dispassionate voice was helping her organize her mind so she could think, which was both good and bad. “What did he . . . ?” She trailed off, unable to finish. Dr. Maggie understood.

“I wasn’t his physician, but my guess would be that it was his heart. Your mama should know more after there’s been an autopsy. I hope that doesn’t upset you, but it’s required in cases like this.”

“No. I want to find out.”

“Of course.” There was a pause. “You should know there was no sign he was in pain. Millie found him in his bed, and she said it looked as if his end was peaceful. It’s likely that it happened in his sleep and he never knew. It can be that way sometimes.”

So he had been alone when he died. Her parents hadn’t slept in the same bedroom for as long as she could remember. She shivered and hoped he hadn’t known what was happening.

Dr. Maggie went on. “If he had lived, he probably would have been incapacitated. I think it would have been an extremely difficult life for a vigorous man like your father.” Li’l Bit nodded. For her daddy to be sick and unable to work would have been impossible. Work was all he had, work and her. And she couldn’t fool herself that she would have been enough.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Maggie said. “Your father was a good man. I’ll miss him.”

And finally, those words made it real.

In a way, that was the beginning of her friendship with Maggie. And it seemed fitting that on the day her father died she had taken the first step on the journey to what was to be her finest—or her lowest—hour; take your pick. But that was years away.

People started swirling around her again and someone said she should be with her mother, poor lamb, so Reverend Davis led her over to the couch where Mama, dressed from head to toe in black, was sitting with a hankie in her hand. But her eyes were dry.

For the next two days, while a part of Li’l Bit’s heart died forever, her daddy lay in state at the funeral home used by Mama’s church, the one he never set foot in. Mama’s brother, a man Daddy had loathed, came down from Atlanta to be a support to her. Together they picked out hymns her father would have laughed at. Men he disliked were chosen to carry his coffin.

Li’l Bit fought with Mama. “You can’t have the funeral in a church,” she said.

“I’m going to do my duty by my husband.”

“Daddy hated churches.”

“I suppose you’d like me to have him dumped in the ground like some heathen. He will have a proper Christian burial.”

“He wasn’t a proper Christian.”

“Well, he’s gone, and I say this is how it’s going to be. Your father humiliated me with his
ideas
for years. Everyone talked about him. Now I’m going to have a funeral like a normal widow.”

“You can’t do this to him.”

“Watch me.”

“I won’t come.”

“If you don’t, you can pack your bags and leave this house right now.”

For a few hours Li’l Bit considered it. She even got out the old leather suitcase with her father’s initials. But in the end she was too much the logical daughter of a lawyer to go through with it. Practical considerations of food and shelter came up. She was not qualified to earn her living, and she knew it. And if she tried to leave and had to come back, Mama would make her crawl. So she put on the black dress and stockings Mama had bought for her, she got in the car with Mama and Uncle Lance, and she went to the funeral.

Standing outside the First Methodist Church of Charles Valley was one of the Negro ministers her father had represented and about thirty people from his congregation. For the first time since she had come home from school to hear that her father was gone, Li’l Bit smiled. But as Mama got out of the car she turned to her brother and muttered, “Get them away from here before the people start arriving.”

“Reverend Thomas just wants to pay his respects, Mama. He doesn’t expect you to ask him to come inside.” Li’l Bit didn’t even try to hide the contempt in her voice.

“Be quiet,” said Beth.

“He was Daddy’s friend—”

“I told you to close your mouth. I’ve been the wife of a nigger lover since I got to this town. I won’t be the widow of one.”

Li’l Bit drew breath to protest, but her mother turned to her with a look that was half triumphant and half defiant and said, “I’m in charge now. Start getting used to it, Margaret Elizabeth.”

So she went into the church with Mama, while Uncle Lance sent away the only part of the funeral her father would have liked. As she walked into the church she saw Dr. Maggie and her parents get out of the car. And she saw the sympathy in Dr. Maggie’s eyes.

H
arrison
B
ANNING
III
WAS BURIED
in the graveyard next to the Methodist Church where, presumably, he immediately began spinning. A week after the funeral, Judge James, who handled Harrison’s affairs, called and asked Mama to come to his office for the reading of the will. At first Beth refused. She was too busy redecorating the house.

“I’ve been wanting to do this hateful old place over for years,” she informed Li’l Bit, “but your father wouldn’t let me touch it—he acted like it was some kind of shrine.”

Now, dressed in black, lace hankie in hand, she was directing the upholsterers to rip the horsehair off an old love seat and re-cover it in perky chintz. Years later, Li’l Bit would learn Mama’s refinishing and re-covering had cut thousands of dollars from the value of these precious old antiques.

“Can’t you just come to the house, Judge?” Mama asked. “It can’t be that complicated. He didn’t have anyone besides me.” But the judge insisted and told her to bring Li’l Bit too.

They went to his office on a Friday morning and found Millie waiting there. Mama didn’t like that one bit, but Judge James was in the room so she managed a smile for Millie. Then Dr. Maggie walked in. Li’l Bit could feel how twitchy Mama was getting. This time there was no attempt at a smile.

It turned out Mama was right—Daddy’s will wasn’t very complicated. He gave Millie ten thousand dollars, and left Dr. Maggie fifteen thousand to start her clinic. Li’l Bit could see Mama calculating the loss of interest on investments in her head. Mama was very good with figures when she had to be. Then suddenly Li’l Bit heard her own name mentioned. “To my daughter, Margaret Elizabeth Banning, I leave the rest of my estate save one dollar, which I must by law leave to Elizabeth Banning, my wife.”

The gasp from Mama seemed to echo in the suddenly silent room.

Then Li’l Bit whispered, “Oh, Daddy, no!”

“What did you just say?” Mama turned on the judge in the way that said a tantrum was coming. Judge James turned red and looked like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet.

“Your late husband—” he began, but Mama cut him off.

“That bastard!” she said. Then she started to laugh. Out of habit, Millie started toward her to avert the oncoming hysterics, but she was too far away.

Li’l Bit got to her mother first. “Mama,” she said, “please don’t—” but her mother slapped her across the face.

The crack of Mama’s hand on her cheek sounded sharp and loud. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dr. Maggie flinch. Judge James had gotten, if possible, even redder. Millie had stopped moving. Mama was quiet, momentarily stunned by what she had just done.

And something cold and very calm had taken over Li’l Bit.

“Mama, we need to go home now,” she said evenly.

Her mother, still in shock, nodded and started out the door.

“Maybe your mother shouldn’t be driving,” Dr. Maggie said. “I’ll take you.”

“I can drive,” Li’l Bit said. “My father taught me.”

They didn’t say a word all the way home. When they got inside the house, her mother turned to her.

“We’ll go to court. You’ll turn everything over to me,” she said. “There must be a way to do it.”

“No, Mama,” she heard herself say.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m your mother. You’re just a child. He can’t leave his entire estate to you.”

“I’m sure he could. Daddy was an excellent lawyer. He wouldn’t have done anything that wasn’t legal.”

“I’ll fight you. I’ll break the will.”

“You can try. But it won’t look very nice. What kind of mother tries to take her daughter’s inheritance away from her?”

“What kind of daughter disinherits her own mother? How will that look to people?”

“Not much better. But your problem is, I don’t care what I look like. You do. Besides, a fight like that will take months, maybe even years, and we’ll spend thousands and thousands of dollars. Daddy always said probate court was like fighting through a swamp. You’d know that if you’d ever listened to him.”

“If you think I’m going to let you do this to me—”

“What I think you’ll do if you’re smart is, you’ll go back to Atlanta where you belong. You never wanted to be here anyway.”

“I will not leave my child—”