Woman in Red (31 page)

He was scraping the last of the plates when Ryan’s words floated back into his consciousness. Now he felt the slow burn of them in his belly. Had he been a selfish prick with his mother, as well? Seeing her through the eyes of a hurt, lonesome little boy instead of those of a nearly grown man? Punishing her for something that wasn’t her fault?

Normally he would have scoffed at the idea, but the unsettling encounter with Carrie Ann and bruising he’d gotten from his cousin had shaken him up, made him reassess things. Not that he was ready to throw himself into his mother’s arms and tell her all was forgiven. Just that it might not hurt to cut her a little slack.

Jeremy finished loading the dishwasher, then carried out the trash. He found Calpernia in the backyard conferring with an old guy, with hair like steel wool and skin the color and texture of beef jerky, the two hovering like a pair of conspirators over some backwoods contraption fashioned out of an oil drum fitted with what looked to be spare parts from the junkyard. Smoke curled from under its hood and from the length of stovepipe sticking up on top, like a mad scientist’s experiment, the air around it shimmering with the heat it was throwing off.

“Jeremy honey, this here’s Uncle Monroe,” Calpernia introduced them. “I know he look like a dried up old thing can’t lift a crate of marshmallows, but he as hardworking as any mule and ain’t no ribs you ever tasted like his.”

“Mouth on her like the
wrong
end of a mule, but she ain’t half bad either.” Uncle Monroe grumbled, turning to beam affectionately at his niece. He had to be close to eighty, skinny as the barbecue fork in his hand and missing one of his front teeth. He turned his attention back to Jeremy. “So what you think, son, ain’t she somepin?”

For a moment Jeremy thought he was referring to Calpernia, then he noticed the old man gazing proudly at his contraption. “It’s something, all right,” he agreed. He just wasn’t sure what. Yet from the enticing smells wafting his way, it was obviously doing the trick.

“’Course you got to have the touch,” said the old man, lifting the lid to give the ribs sizzling on the grate a poke with his fork. “Ain’t somepin you can learn overnight.”

Calpernia turned to Jeremy. “He just holding out on me, is all. Don’t want nobody knowing the recipe for his secret sauce. He say it’s pro-
pri
-etary. Old fool don’t even know what that word mean,” she added with a throaty chuckle.

Uncle Monroe put on a mock injured look. “Do so. Looked it up in the dictionary.”

Jeremy listened to their banter a few minutes longer. But if Calpernia’s attempts to pry the recipe out of her uncle had been unsuccessful so far, Jeremy would bet a week’s pay she’d get it out of him eventually. She wasn’t the type to take no for an answer.

At first he hadn’t known what to make of her. There weren’t many black people on the island, and none like Calpernia King. In fact, she was unlike anyone he’d ever met: tough, streetwise, with a mouth that made Rud’s seem tame. Nor did she seem all that interested in Jeremy’s opinion of her, good or bad. But after initially being put off, he’d found himself intrigued. He even admired her in a
way. She was unafraid and unapologetic. She refused to be defined by the bad hand life had dealt her.

The only thing that still seemed odd was the bond between Calpernia and his mom. In his fuzzy memories of childhood, the mother he had known would never have been friends with someone like Calpernia. She’d have been polite if they’d happened to meet, but that was about as far as it would have gone. Not because she was prejudiced, but because they had nothing in common—their skin color was the least of their differences. Whatever had happened to her in prison, he thought, it had made his mother a more interesting person.

Jeremy sampled the forkful of brisket Uncle Monroe had speared, which tasted even more delicious than it smelled. “Wow. That’s amazing. You sure it’s legal?”

Calpernia chuckled. “Better be, or I’m in trouble.”

Jeremy lingered a few minutes more before saying reluctantly, “Well, I guess I’d better get back to work. My mom has her hands full in there. I’ve never seen it this busy.”

“Son, you ain’t seen nothing yet. We just getting warmed up,” said Uncle Monroe.

Calpernia chimed in, adopting her uncle’s Southern drawl, “Yeah, soon as this ol’ fool teach me all his tricks, I be showin’ y’all a thing or two.” She chuckled, wagging her head, as if at some private joke.

Jeremy noticed the change in atmosphere as soon as he stepped back inside. A hush had fallen over the restaurant, and in the kitchen, with its counter that opened onto the dining area, his mother stood as motionless as a statue, gazing out at the packed tables.

“It’s him,” she said in a strange, flat voice.

“Who?” Jeremy felt his heart start to thump.

She turned to him, and he saw the fear on her face, the defiance too. “Mister White.”

Jeremy looked out into the dining area, where the mayor was seated at a table by the window. He looked perfectly at ease, as if he were any patron perusing the menu, trying to decide between a hot or cold appetizer. He was so inconspicuous Jeremy might not have singled him out if it hadn’t been for the wheelchair. That, and the sight of his mother, her face drained of all color, as she looked upon the man who had cost her everything she held dear.

 

Eleanor Styles was holding up remarkably well, they all said. Though some privately speculated that the reason no one had seen her shed a tear might have more to do with her strange, proud ways than deep shock brought on by her husband’s death. For while she’d joined the ranks of war widows, she kept mainly to herself. She was rarely seen about town and if she worshiped on Sundays it wasn’t in any church. When someone did run into her by accident, turning down an aisle in Kingston Grocery or waiting in-line at Caldwell’s Pharmacy, it was like glimpsing an apparition—a ghostly figure dressed in black, regal somehow in her mourning, often clutching the hand of her equally subdued daughter.

There was something about Eleanor that didn’t invite conversation. Most of the islanders had known her since she was a little girl, but only a handful felt they had more than a nodding acquaintance with her. From early childhood on,
the minister’s youngest daughter had been set apart, by her beauty and by the rumors that later swirled around her: that she was fast, that she kept company with older men, namely one Lowell White. Even her marriage to Joe Styles had raised eyebrows. Why him and not one of the dozens of more suitable men her age who’d have walked over hot coals to be with her? More than a few had their suspicions about the timing of the union, given the arrival of Joe and Eleanor’s daughter seven and a half months later, but Lucy had been a scrawny infant, weighing less than six pounds at birth, so she could indeed have been premature, as was claimed. And certainly no one could find fault with Mrs. Styles’s conduct, which was beyond reproach.

Even her widowhood seemed more poignant somehow than that of others who’d suffered similar losses. Mourning had only heightened her pale beauty and made her more arresting in her quiet dignity. Those wives with husbands home from the war or on leave were secretly glad that Eleanor kept to herself, that she didn’t partake in any of the social activities that might have thrown her into contact with them. For however bravely those men might have conducted themselves in battle, few would have been a match for Eleanor Styles. Without even meaning to, she could slay a man with a single glance.

One of those men approached her as she was collecting her mail at the post office one unseasonably warm morning in April, with the red-flowering currant in bloom and the gray whales making their annual pilgrimage to mate in the waters offshore. “Missus Styles,” spoke a familiar voice in her ear. She turned to find herself face to face with her former lover. She’d spotted him in passing through the years, but they hadn’t exchanged a word in nearly a decade. It was
a shock now to see him standing before her, lean and louche as ever in a fedora and gray pinstripe suit too fine to have been purchased on the island. He smiled, the creases around his eyes and mouth deepening, as if with some private amusement. “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

She froze for an instant, but quickly regained her composure, conscious of the postmistress’s eye on her. No news by post or wire ever traveled faster than that carried by Edna Polhouse’s tongue. “Yes, Mister White, it has. A very long time,” she replied in a formal tone. “What brings you out this way?” Normally it would have been his secretary sending a package or collecting the mail, just as Eleanor had done on his behalf any number of times.

“Express delivery,” he replied, producing a wrapped parcel from under his arm. “Wouldn’t you know, everyone in my office is out sick with the flu. So here I am, left to fend for myself.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“And you? How are you getting along these days?” His jaunty smile gave way to an expression of sympathy. “Terrible about your husband. I read about it in the paper. Guadalcanal, wasn’t it? ”

She gave a stiff little nod of acknowledgment.

“I didn’t know him well,” Lowell went on, “but he did some work for me once. He seemed like a good man.”

“He was.” Eleanor cringed at the patent insincerity of his words. But she felt the hot fingers of her grief tighten their grip around her heart nonetheless, a grief magnified by the guilt she felt. For, as unreasonable as it was, she couldn’t shake the suspicion that her love for William had somehow been the cause of her husband’s death.

“Well, if there’s ever anything I can do. Anything at all . . .” Lowell’s eyes seemed to convey something more than sympathy.

Haven’t you done enough?
Her polite expression remained frozen in place, Eleanor wishing only for this unpleasant exchange to be over. What if Lucy had been with her? How awkward it would have been! And suppose someone had noticed the resemblance between father and daughter? Seeing them side by side, it would have been hard to miss. Eleanor grew cold at the thought.

“Thank you, but I’m managing just fine,” she said. A lie really, but how was he to know?

She stepped past him to drop her mail into the slot: some overdue bills she’d finally been able to pay with the money from Joe’s death benefit, and a letter to Joe’s sister in Oregon, pleading the excuse of being under the weather to prevent her from visiting. Ever since word had come of her brother’s death, Imogene had been insisting that she come, seeming to think Eleanor would benefit from the company of someone with whom she could share her grief, but Eleanor wished only to be left alone.

She was walking across the parking lot, headed for her car, when Lowell called after her, “Eleanor!”

She halted in her tracks.
He’s going to say something about Lucy
, she thought. Her heart began to pound and wings of panic beat in her breast. It was a struggle to retain her cool demeanor, but somehow she managed it, pretending she didn’t notice the purposeful way he was now planting himself in her path or the intensity of his gaze, which seemed intrusive somehow.

“Yes, what is it?” she replied somewhat impatiently.

“I just wanted you to know I truly am sorry. About your husband. About . . . the girl, too.” In that moment, he almost seemed sincere.

Eleanor, though, was unmoved. She eyed him coldly. “She has a name. Lucy.”

“Christ. You think I don’t know? She’s my daughter!” Lowell snatched off his hat, pushing a hand through his hair. The only other time she’d seen him this agitated was when she’d told him she was expecting. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like for me. So many times I’ve wanted to . . . to make it up to you somehow. But there was Joe. And if Dorothy ever found out, she . . . well, I’d rather she didn’t.”

Dorothy. His wife. The suitable match he’d made after he’d finished sowing his wild oats. Eleanor had read about it in the paper when the engagement was announced. Dorothy Jasper, daughter of Texas oil baron Henry Jasper and a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where she’d belonged to the Phi Delta Kappa sorority. Years later, upon Henry’s death, the entire estate had gone to Dorothy, his only child, thus more than doubling Lowell’s already vast wealth. But there was one thing he’d never lay claim to, and that was Lucy. Not as long as Eleanor had breath in her.

“How
is
your wife?” she inquired pointedly.

“Very well, thank you,” he answered distractedly. “But, say, that’s not why I—”

She plowed on resolutely. “And your children?” She’d seen them around town, a girl with her father’s dark good looks, and a boy who was the image of his wan milk-skinned mother.

“Let’s leave my family out of this, shall we.” The faux warmth went out of his expression, and now he cast a
furtive glance about the parking lot, as if suddenly becoming aware of being out in the open where anyone might have seen them. Luckily, no one was about. The only signs of activity were the bees bobbling amid the honeysuckle vines along the fence and the sparrows pecking at the blossoms that had drifted down from the maple tree overhead and were sprinkled in a fine gold carpet over the pavement. “Listen, Eleanor, I know this is awkward for you. It is for me, too,” he said, adopting a more conciliatory tone. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”