The Time Between (9 page)

I clutched the keys in my hand. “It’s not a problem. I really appreciate the use of the car.” I smiled, feeling awkward again. “I guess I’d better go. Before the traffic . . .” My voice trailed away as I fumbled for the door latch.

“Would you like to stay for dinner? Mrs. McKenna always makes plenty in case I have a client over. To make up for you missing your own dinner at home.”

My hand paused on the doorknob as I looked back at Finn. “Thank you, but I need to get back. They’ll be waiting for me to make dinner.”

His face remained impassively polite. “Well, then, you’ll need to get home. Sorry to have kept you.”

I pulled open the door and stepped out onto the portico, then faced him again. “I’m curious. Did Gigi design her own room?”

“No, actually. I did—with the help of a decorator friend. But I knew exactly what she’d want.”

I nodded, trying not to smile at the image of Finn Beaufain sorting through rolls of pink tulle and lace.

“Why?” he asked.

I wasn’t really sure of the answer, only that the almost-forgotten edge of pushing my boundaries had suddenly poked its way up through the clouds of self-doubt and penitence. “Just wondering. It’s the kind of room every girl dreams of. And I thought maybe her mother had done it as a sort of homage to her own girlhood dreams.”

His eyes darkened. “Harper wouldn’t have known even where to begin.”

I felt chagrined, as if I’d been Bluebeard’s wife caught peeking into the locked room. I took a step backward. “About Saturday—I’m going to shoot for eleven o’clock. Traffic in the summer can be unpredictable.”

“That’s fine. Peanut and I are going to be there Friday night, so no rush. We’ll see you when you get there.”

“Well, good-bye, then,” I said.

He nodded in response and then watched me walk through the gate to the parked car. I didn’t look back, not wanting to ruin the mental image of Finn Beaufain standing in a puddle of pink tulle as he created the dream bedroom for his little girl. I unlocked the door and paused for a moment, remembering how Gigi had called me Ellie, and wondering what she’d meant when she’d said that people named Eleanor didn’t dream when they slept at night.

W
hen I arrived home, Glen and Eve were sitting outside on the front porch swing. A pizza box sat on the table in front of them, and I felt a stab of guilt.

“We were hungry,” Eve said, her eyes on me. “There’s another whole pizza in the fridge if you haven’t eaten.”

Glen wiped his hands on a napkin and stood, making sure that the swing didn’t rock too much and disturb Eve. “Nice car, Eleanor. Where’d it come from?”

I wondered if the hint of accusation I heard in his voice was real or imagined.

He came down the steps toward the car, and I saw the way the sun hit his dark hair, turning the edges of it copper. It reminded me of the first time I’d ever seen him, wearing his Citadel cadet uniform and sitting with fellow cadets in the adjacent booth at Carolina’s restaurant in Charleston. His back was to me, and the sun through the window had lit his hair on fire just like a beacon. And then I’d turned to Eve and dared her to go say hello.

But I didn’t fall in love with him until his first date with Eve. He’d come to pick her up in a friend’s borrowed Honda, and I’d been instructed to offer him something to drink on the front porch and keep him entertained while Mama helped Eve get dressed. The first thing he did when I answered the door was take off his hat, something no member of the opposite sex had ever done in my presence before. He’d been a first-year student at the Citadel—a knob—and his hair had been shorn so close that you could see his scalp. But his eyebrows were dark, with coppery edges, and nicely shaped, and his eyes were so brown they’d seemed almost black.

He was probably the most handsome boy I’d ever seen—not that I’d seen many—which made me so nervous that when I returned to the porch with a Tupperware pitcher of lemonade and two plastic tumblers, I’d tripped, sending the tray and its contents down the steps.

He hadn’t laughed, and his first concern was for me, to make sure I hadn’t been hurt. I might have fallen in love when he’d wiped the drip of lemonade off my nose and gave me a silly grin, or perhaps it was when he’d been the one to suggest making another pitcher while he cleaned up the mess so that I’d have nothing to explain to Eve and Mama. Or maybe it was when he’d escorted Eve down the porch to his car, her delicate hand tucked inside the elbow of his arm, and he’d turned around to wink at me.

He was still the tall, lanky, and broad-shouldered young man he’d once been, but his eyes weren’t as bright, and his step was now heavier, as if the burden of years rested heavily on him like a yoke tethering him to the life he’d made for himself.

“It’s for my new part-time job. I’ll be taking care of an elderly woman living on Edisto a couple of days a week. She’s Mr. Beaufain’s great-aunt, so he’s made a few allowances for my work schedule at his office downtown, and I have the use of the nanny’s car for now.”

Glen leaned down to peer into the driver’s side window. “Looks like it’s brand-new.”

I shrugged. “Could be—it smells new.”

I climbed up the stairs and took the seat next to Eve, and she leaned back, almost imperceptibly. When we were children we’d sometimes shared a bed when I’d been afraid of the dark or a storm and needed the comfort of a familiar touch. It had been at Eve’s request, telling our father it was part of her job as oldest sister to protect me.

Clearing my throat, I said, “The days that I’m in Edisto, I’ll be staying there for dinner. I’ll try to make sure you have leftovers to reheat, or you can order pizza. The extra money I’ll be bringing in will make going to a restaurant once in a while a little more affordable.”

I’d been staring at my hands, then slowly raised my gaze to meet Eve’s violet eyes. They’d been compared to Elizabeth Taylor’s, yet Eve’s were opaque, not allowing any light to shine through them. They hadn’t always been that way but had changed as she’d grown older, as if she’d chosen that to happen in the same manner she’d chosen to start wearing shorter dresses or to cut her hair.

“How nice for you,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine surviving on pizza and fast food.”

“Eve.” Glen’s voice held a note of warning, but my sister and I both knew that whatever it was between us was impenetrable, a thick, dark place where we wallowed yet allowed no one else entry.

I stood and walked toward the edge of the porch and looked out at the dried grass and dead flowers I’d planted earlier in the spring and then forgotten. Nobody had bothered to water them. “To start, I’ll be going to Edisto every Wednesday and Saturday, although we might add a day or two, depending on how it goes. If you need help getting to your doctor’s appointments, please schedule them on the days I’m here. Or maybe schedule them during Glen’s lunch hour so he can take you.”

I didn’t turn around, afraid they’d both see my uncertainty, my unease with this person speaking and using my mouth. But all I had to do was focus on Eve’s pregnancy, and it all became so much easier.

I heard Glen climbing the porch steps and then the sound of the porch swing straining from the ropes that held it to the ceiling. “That won’t be a problem,” he said, and I pictured him placing a restraining hand on top of Eve’s, and the thought made me want to cry.

A heavy thrumming bass from a radio blared as an old white pickup truck with giant tires slowly passed in front of the house. It slowed to a stop and the driver leaned out, his cigarette hanging from his fingers, which drummed against the door to the beat of the music.

The volume lowered as the driver leaned out of the car and shouted my name. “Eleanor!”

I stayed on the porch, recognizing Rocky Cooper, a boy I’d gone to high school with. A boy who’d once appointed himself my partner in crime. I lifted my hand in greeting, wanting him to move on. I peered past him toward the passenger seat to a man I didn’t recognize who was raising a bottle to his lips.

“Hey, Rocky.”

“Haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said, his once boyish face now darkened to leather by the South Carolina sun. I’d heard he worked in construction now, flitting in and out of jobs depending on his sobriety. “Thought you’d moved away. Then again, I don’t get back to Edisto too often.” He smirked. “Somebody’s always complainin’ about somethin’.”

I nodded, as if I agreed. “Been working. Keeping busy.” I stayed where I was, hoping he’d get the hint.

He jerked his head toward his companion. “Me and Jimmy was planning on going out for some fun tonight. Why don’t you hop on in and join us?”

I tried to make my smile genuine. “I’d like to, but I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

He looked behind me to where Eve and Glen still sat, then returned his gaze to me. “Looks like a real party.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Jimmy lifted his bottle in a salute as Rocky gunned the engine, the music returning to its previous volume, the throbbing tempo lingering long after I could no longer see the truck.

“Sure miss having him around,” Eve said primly.

“Me, too,” I replied without any hint of sarcasm as I headed toward the door. “I’m going to reheat a slice of pizza.”

Her voice called me back. “You haven’t asked me when the baby’s due.”

I felt like someone had poured a large bucket of iced water down my back. I faced her, surprised to see the uncertainty there. “I thought you had to see the doctor first to confirm a due date.”

“We will. But my guess would be January.” Her look was almost hopeful. “You’ll be an aunt in January.”

I was suspicious of this olive branch, wondering if it would snap back and slap me. “A winter baby, then. That’ll be nice for you, not having to go through the last months of pregnancy in the heat of summer.”

“And I can wear some of Glen’s sweaters in the cold weather to save money on maternity clothes.” She leaned her head on Glen’s shoulder as her hands rested on her flat belly.

“Great,” I said. “I’m going to go eat my dinner now.”

I quickly opened the door, letting it slam behind me as if I could shut out the memory of when I’d died and come back to life, and how I still couldn’t figure out why.

Eve

I sat in my wheelchair, facing the dining room sideboard, which hadn’t been used for food in years. It was an antique, from our mother’s family, and had probably once been worth something. But years of neglect and a broken hinge on the front successfully hid any potential.

Mama had been using it for storage space for her costume making, a necessity since the arthritis in her knees made climbing up and down the stairs to the bins that lined the walls in her bedroom impossible. And now that I’d pretty much taken over her business, I realized that I’d have to do the same thing. Either that or wait until Eleanor or Glen came home to fetch things for me.

I stared in dismay at the crammed interior of the sideboard, with scraps of fabrics, bead boxes, several pairs of scissors, and glue bottles—a few which appeared either empty or so old that their contents would be useless—and even magazine clippings. Mama had once subscribed to
Vogue
when we could afford it. I knew her mother had had a subscription while Mama was growing up in Charleston, before she met Daddy, and that Grandmother—whom I’d never met even though she’d died less than a year before—had used the magazine to plan her wardrobe. Mama had just used it to get ideas for costumes. I knew these clippings had been pulled from the magazines in doctors’ offices when nobody had been looking. Eleanor and I had simply looked away, accustomed for too long to Mama’s idiosyncrasies.

The slamming of a drawer and then the sound of hard footfalls came from upstairs. I hadn’t meant to make Eleanor angry. Or maybe I had. It was almost a relief to see the old spark in her. It was her fault, really. I wanted my sister back. The girl she’d been before Daddy died; the girl with the easy laugh and the brave heart. Even the wild girl she’d become afterward would have been preferable to the ghost she was now. Maybe that’s what she was. She had died that day, after all. Maybe she just hadn’t realized yet that she wasn’t still dead.

Her bedroom door opened and I listened as she stomped across the hall to the bathroom, and then the door slammed shut. I sighed, then leaned forward into the cabinet, the sound of the television annoying me more than usual. Mama did little else these days, and it took all I had not to yell at her and tell her that the less she moved, the less she’d be
able
to move. I did my physical therapy every day for that reason. I might be confined to my wheelchair, but I refused to be a prisoner in my own life. Sometimes I felt as if I were living in a haunted house, cohabiting with the spirits of the walking dead.

I peered into the back of the cabinet. A rectangular package—what looked to be a dress pattern—had slid behind one of the drawers and was trapped between the drawer and the back of the sideboard. Pressing the side of my face against the front, I leaned forward with my outstretched hand and, grasping the corner, tugged until it came loose. Sitting back in my chair, I looked down to see what I’d rediscovered and felt a smile curl my lips.

“Eleanor!” I shouted, then waited until the bathroom door opened, her footsteps hurried as she ran down the stairs.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, her face flushed from the cold water she’d been splashing on her face, which still couldn’t hide her red-rimmed and swollen eyes.

“Look what I found.” I handed over the dress pattern.

I could tell by the way her face softened that she recognized it, too. “My suit,” she said softly.

It was a
Vogue
pattern that she and I had picked out at the fabric store on her fourteenth birthday, a classic women’s suit with a Chanel silhouette of pencil skirt and bracelet-length sleeves. It was the suit she would have worn for her interview at Juilliard, and I was going to make it for her when she was old enough to wear it and I was old enough to operate my mother’s sewing machine. We had purchased it about a month before our father died, a month before Eleanor had closed up the piano and stopped dreaming.

“I can’t believe we still have this,” she said, her fingers gripping it tightly. She looked over at me with uncertain eyes, as if she wasn’t sure if we were sharing a memory or if I was tossing her dreams up in the air to see them scatter like confetti.

“It’s still a beautiful pattern,” I said. “With a more updated fabric, of course. No one wears those colors in plaid anymore.”

We looked at each other, our smiles fading, as if realizing simultaneously that we didn’t do that anymore, that the last thing we’d been in agreement on was a trip to see who could climb the highest in an oak tree.

“No, probably not,” she said. “If you’re going through stuff to give away, I guess you can toss this in the pile.”

Don’t,
I wanted to yell at her.
Don’t, don’t, don’t.
She had made her own purgatory, with me her fellow prisoner. Except she seemed to think that I had the key to our cell. Maybe I did, but I didn’t spend my time dwelling on it. It wasn’t my nature. Eleanor needed to find her own escape, make her own key. Because I was growing weary of watching her fling herself against her life like a moth to a light.

“Sure,” I said, wanting my words to sting, if only to see if I could resurrect that spark again. “I’ll just give it away, since I don’t see anybody in this house needing it.”

“Are we expecting visitors?” Mama called from the family room.

Eleanor placed the pattern on top of the sideboard as we both turned toward the front window. A black Mercedes sedan had just parked in front of the house, and an impossibly pink little girl was climbing from the backseat, something clutched in her hands. We watched as the driver exited the car and took the girl’s hand before they both climbed the steps to the front door.

“Oh,” Eleanor said, nervously glancing at the stairs as if looking for an escape. Then she bolted for the front door and threw it open before the visitors could press the doorbell and discover it was broken.

She smiled the smile I hadn’t seen in a long time as she spoke to the little girl first. “Hello, Gigi. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“You forgot your purse. You left it in my room.”