Read Tied to the Tracks Online
Authors: Rosina Lippi
Tied to the Tracks (10 page)
It had been a surprisingly productive week for the simple reason that she was spending most of her day and her night, too, working.
“This is good stuff.” Rivera was looking at Angie’s binder when she said this, the one she carried with her everywhere on a shoot. There were three full pages of notes from her talk with Sister Ellen Mary at the rectory, all about Miss Zula’s family history and her mother. Rivera made a notation of her own. “I didn’t think you’d been out of the house long enough to do an interview, Mangiamele.” She looked up with a grin. “If you get this much done without distractions, we have to find a way to put John Grant back in the hospital, once he gets out.”
“He’s not in the hospital,” Angie said, “and you know it.”
“Well, then he’s in hiding,” Rivera said. “So the small-town rumor mill is going full tilt. The latest is that he got blood poisoning and they had to take his leg off. Hey,” she said, holding up a hand, palm out. “I’m just the messenger.”
“And where did you hear this?” Angie asked. “At the quilt shop?”
“Fat Quarters is the source of all knowledge,” Rivera agreed. “I do hear interesting things from the men on the Liars’ Bench outside the barbershop, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Pearl’s shop is better.”
Rivera had been cultivating a number of leads in the community, primary among them the middle three Rose girls. Pearl, it turned out, owned the quilting shop. A whole army of women came to Fat Quarters whenever they could spare an hour to work on whatever project they had going, and Pearl Rose was the queen of all that.
“So what’s the buzz?”
“While I was there, Pearl told them all about what happened to John, and then when she turned her back, everybody tried to figure out what she really meant but was too embarrassed to say directly.”
“Maybe you should be hanging out at the Hound Dog. Tony was down there yesterday and heard that John lost a testicle.”
Rivera said, “They’ve got better-looking women at Fat Quarters. Which you’d know if you’d take a break. Come into town with me today, we’ll stop by the Piggly Wiggly. Miss Maddie does a lot of her shopping there, you know. There’s a world of wisdom in watching her pick out peaches.”
“I’ll put it on the list,” said Angie. And, a little wistfully: “I wish some of Miss Maddie would rub off on you. You shouldn’t be spreading rumors. Bad juju.”
“You are such a fake,” Rivera said, laughing. “You’d go crazy wondering if you didn’t have us to bring you the news. He’s fine, you know. Eunice says so.”
“So are you best friends now with all the Rose girls?”
“According to Eunice,” Rivera repeated, pointedly ignoring Angie’s tone, “John only needed three stitches, no infection. It was way too close for comfort, but no lasting damage.”
“Good for John,” Angie said.
Rivera said, “Good for Caroline Rose.” And laughed again at the small, tight smile that was all the answer Angie could summon.
Angie thought a lot about Caroline Rose, for reasons she didn’t want to examine too closely. Caroline was tall, elegant, silver blond, immaculately groomed and dressed. She had turned out to be not only John’s fiancée and colleague but Miss Zula’s unofficial assistant in all things. There was no avoiding her, and, worse luck, no way to dislike her, either.
Early in the morning of another day that promised to be scorching hot, Angie sat by the river and contemplated the vagaries of fate that had brought her to this place at this particular point in time, when John was about to get married. Angie crossed her arms over her upraised knees and rested her forehead on the cool skin of her forearms and thought about the fix she was in. The truth was, she would have paid pretty much any price to get back her peace of mind and a few hours of sound sleep. It was becoming increasingly obvious that she’d have to take the first step, find John, and lay down some ground rules, get things said and out of the way.
If she only knew what to say. If only he didn’t have better things to be thinking about just now than a neurotic, obsessive ex-girlfriend. An arrow to the crotch, for one, and his upcoming wedding, for another.
“Angie?”
The odd thing was, she must have finally drifted off to sleep sitting in the sun, because she was dreaming about Caroline Rose, who seemed to be floating across the lawn toward her.
Angie righted herself so quickly that a sharp, sudden pain shot up her back.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Caroline said, looking as uncertain and embarrassed as Angie felt. “And I realize that it’s very early to be calling, but I do have a good reason. May I?”
“Sure.” Angie moved to the far end of the bench, wondering just how much of an ass she was about to make of herself and what she would say if Caroline Rose raised those topics Angie least wanted to talk about. She looked toward the house and sent a silent plea to Rivera.
Come rescue me.
Come rescue me.
“Miss Zula and Miss Maddie sent me,” said Caroline. “To see if you’d like to come by for breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Angie echoed. A spark of professional interest overrode her discomfort. All week they had been waiting for this first invitation to the little house on Magnolia Street, and here it was.
“It’s a tradition, once a month,” Caroline was explaining. “The god-daughters’ breakfast. Miss Zula is my godmother and Miss Maddie is my sister Harriet’s godmother. Once in a while they invite someone else to join us.” Her hands fluttered up out of her lap and then fell again. “All women, of course.”
“Of course,” Angie echoed. All women meant no John Grant, which was a good thing just now. She said, “Look, tell me honestly. Will Miss Zula be insulted if I send my regrets?”
Caroline looked distinctly surprised at such a suggestion. “It’s very hard to insult Miss Zula if you’re being honest,” she said. “Miss Maddie is another matter, of course. She does love to cook for folks.”
“Then I’d be happy to,” Angie said, resigned. “I’ll just get my shoes.”
Caroline’s gaze jumped toward the house and back again. “The invitation was for both of you. Would Rivera be interested, do you think?”
“If I can get her out of bed,” Angie said. “Let me—”
“There’s John,” said Caroline.
Angie went very still. “John?”
“John,” echoed Caroline. She pointed with her chin. “Just there.”
Full of dread, Angie turned toward the river and took it in: the graceful bend of the willows, the sun on the water, and the sweep of oars as the single scull came into view. John Grant, tousle-headed, as though he had gone directly from bed to the river, his skin flushed with sun and exercise. The perfect shoulders and arms clenching and relaxing in an easy rhythm and then his face coming up, turned toward them. In the distance a train whistle blew, long and plaintive.
Hysterical laughter, Angie told herself firmly, would be a mistake.
Later, John would try to reconstruct for himself how things could go so wrong in the space of a few seconds. A week’s worth of planning, all gone in that single sweep of the oars that had brought him around the bend in the river. His first time on the water since the regrettable incident at Junie Rose’s birthday party. He had been feeling good, and settled, and glad of the morning until he looked up and saw them there: Angie Mangiamele and Caroline Rose standing side by side. It was a sight to put a better man than John Grant off his stroke, but at least the river was running fast. Just as quickly as they had come into view they were gone.
Angie Mangiamele in shorts and a faded, shapeless Nirvana T-shirt that was ten years old at least. He knew this because it had been faded and old when he first saw it, hanging on the bedpost in the tiny bedroom of her apartment near NYU. He still remembered how it smelled.
It had seemed so straightforward, in the last few days of self-imposed house arrest. He had written it out for himself, the things he would say. Just as soon as he fully recovered he would knock on Angie’s office door, and initiate the conversation they obviously had to have. They were both adults, after all, and reasonable people. A few ground rules and they would be able to interact in public without problems.
On another list he made an outline of the things he would tell Caroline, who was the most reasonable and rational of human beings. Just a few facts, put in perspective, and that would be the end of the matter.
Except, of course, he had never imagined that Angie would still own that T-shirt, or what the sight of it might do to him, the memories it could drag up. Such as what Angie smelled like, in the early morning. Angie in the morning. He had not put that on his list, and that, he realized, was a serious flaw in his reasoning.
Rivera had fallen in love with the house on Magnolia Street where the Bragg sisters lived at first drive-by, and was so eager to see the inside of it that she got out of bed without complaint. In Caroline’s car she asked one question after another about the street and the houses on the street, small and neat, a working neighborhood with swing sets in the yards and vegetable gardens. Caroline, animated, answered her questions and volunteered a spontaneous genealogy, naming Miss Zula’s neighbors, many of whom were Bragg cousins. Marilee Bragg, who had come to visit them their first weekend in Ogilvie, waved to them from a front porch littered with toys.
“It’s like Hoboken,” Rivera said. “Angie’s got more than fifty blood relatives on one block.”
“Doesn’t look anything like this,” Angie said.
The man pruning roses in the garden across the street raised a hand and touched his brow in greeting as they got out of the car.
“Wait, let me guess,” Rivera said. “Second cousin three times removed.”
“No, that’s Mr. Jackson. He runs the power plant at the university, but he’s protective of Miss Zula and Miss Maddie. Everyone in the neighborhood is. And there’s Thomasina Chance, do you see there, the woman in the vegetable garden? She owns the restaurant across from campus.” The next few minutes were taken up with a discussion of local restaurants, but Angie didn’t catch much of it; she was too busy sketching a rough map of the neighborhood and writing down names.
The Braggs’ house was set back in a small garden in the full flush of summer, heavy with blossom, alive with bees. There were sunflowers and beans on trellises and young tomato plants tied to stakes with lengths of old nylon stocking. Louie slept in a patch of sunshine, opening one eye to appraise the young women and then snuffling himself back to sleep.
At least Rivera’s mind was on business. She stood at the gate with one hand pressed to her mouth and the other to her heart, a pose that meant she was seeing camera angles. This was about work, after all. Angie repeated that to herself as they went up on the little porch. There was a brass plaque on the wall that read MAGNOLIA HOUSE 1880. Below that, a small typewritten card had been tacked into place.
By order of her physician, Miss Bragg may no longer entertain unannounced visitors seeking autographs. Do not ring the bell. Dr. Calvin Bragg.
In neat, slightly wavering handwriting the word
please
had been inserted before the last, rather abrupt directive.
please
had been inserted before the last, rather abrupt directive.
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Rivera said.
Miss Maddie set an old-fashioned breakfast table, one covered with a flowered tablecloth and crowded with heavy, thick plates and platters. Delighted, Rivera helped herself to flapjacks and eggs and bacon and ham and drizzled syrup over the whole.
“I do like to see a girl with an appetite,” said Miss Maddie. “Won’t you have one of these muffins Caroline made for us? She’s the best cook in Ogilvie, is our Caroline.”
“You are the sweetest thing,” Caroline said, blushing. “But far too kind.”
Angie found herself next to Miss Zula, who seemed content to watch and listen as Rivera and Miss Maddie and Caroline carried on a disjointed but energetic conversation about ham.
With her silver-blond hair and long pale neck, Caroline worked like crystal wine goblet among jelly-jar glasses, but she was clearly at home here and very much at ease. She moved around the kitchen as if she had spent many hours there—to refill the coffeepot, to fetch Miss Maddie her handkerchief—and kept up with her part of the conversation.
She was saying, “Mama’s planning on going up to the lake tomorrow.”
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