A Place We Knew Well (15 page)

“No,” he told her, flattered that she remembered.

“You said how much you looked forward to kids of your own. You were kind to me, Wes. I've never forgotten that. In the hospital, when the time came, I didn't give Carly to Sarah, do you remember? I handed her to
you.
”

The memory of that moment—Charlotte so tiny yet so perfect, an exquisite little doll pulsing with life, and the welling in his heart, the overwhelming need to protect her—was a touchstone for Avery. He returned to it often; as recently as yesterday, in fact, when she'd appeared at the station so fragile and frightened. Charlotte had come to him for comfort and for the truth.

And he'd always given it to her—except for this one thing.

On their honeymoon drive down to Florida, Sarah had drawn the line. “I'm her mother and you're her father. Let's just leave it at
that.
” It had been easy to present themselves as Charlotte's parents, easier still after they heard from Dolores that Kitty was dead. But
now
?

Kitty's eyes blazed with intention. “Seventeen years ago, I quit Tuscaloosa and everyone in it. But not before Mama and Sarah made me promise, made me
swear
on the family Bible, ‘No contact with the child, no deathbed confessions of motherhood, no nothing,
ever.
' I'm not here to break my word. But to tell you the truth, Wes—I mean, who really knows where all this missile-business is headed?—I just want to see her. If we're all bound for hell in a handbasket, I want to lay eyes on my only daughter, just once…before I go.”

For the second time that day, Avery recalled the nauseating sense of jumping out of the known, falling through nothingness, and landing in a new, never-imagined hell. Kitty, whom everyone thought was dead, was not only alive, but wanted to see his daughter. Avery swallowed hard against the surge of bile at the back of his throat.

He was struggling to stay on top of a sudden swell of emotions. Think, man, think! In chess terms, this is surely only a check, not checkmate. What are your options?

If Sarah were here, she'd have ordered Kitty out by now, insisting she honor their agreement exactly as planned. Certainly, she'd expect him to do the same.

But under the circumstances—who knew what was going to happen?—how could he deny Kitty her request? She was, technically, Charlotte's mother. And all she wanted, she claimed, was to “lay eyes” on Charlotte. Where was the harm in that? But Sarah…Sarah was her mother, too. The only one Charlotte had ever known, with a lifetime of care and devotion to her.

Two mothers, one child. In the Bible, it had taken the wisdom of Solomon to set things straight. But he was no Solomon. More than that—his jaw hardened with resolve—although Charlotte had two mothers, he was her only father. Her real father, Kitty's Italian fiancé, was long gone, killed in The War the week before V-E Day. He'd never even known of Charlotte's existence. Or that Kitty, an army nurse in Rome, had been quietly discharged, come home unmarried, pregnant, and, in her family's proper southern mind, disgraced.

And what about Charlotte? What if
she
learned the truth of their lifelong lie to her: that Sarah was her aunt. That he was, in fact, her kindly uncle. By marriage. With no genuine blood ties between them. Would she forgive or reject him? The possibility that he might lose her over the untold truth, the deliberate lie, being exposed was too painful to consider.

Somehow, he
had
to help Kitty.

Not because he was kind. Not because it was the right thing to do.
No.
He'd help Kitty because, bottom line, helping her might help him if Charlotte ever learned the truth.

“She's up for Homecoming Queen,” he said quietly. “The parade's on Friday afternoon down Edgewater Drive, College Park's main drag. You come, you can see her then.”

He heard her sharp intake of breath. “Homecoming?” Her eyes flared open, then shuttered so quickly, he couldn't be sure of her true reaction. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely, barely above a whisper.

He walked her out, opened the front door, and stood back to let her pass, hoping she couldn't hear his heart hammering inside his chest. “So, you headed back to Tampa now?”

“No.” She clicked open her purse. “I was going to leave this at the station in case you weren't around.” She handed him a business card. “The number on the back is the Cherry Plaza Hotel. With all the action out at MacDill, I haven't slept for days. l'm hoping to catch up.” She paused. “Y'know, Wes, Daddy liked to say Sarah was his songbird and I was his black cat. I got all the lives, he'd say, but Sarah…” She reached out and, with a red-tipped fingernail, traced the line of his jaw. “Sarah got all the luck.” Her finger stopped at the base of his chin. “I sure hope she appreciates how lucky she is,” she murmured, then leaned in.

Her kiss, petal-soft, nicotine-sweet, stunned him. As did the heady swirl of her perfume and the dizzying undertow of feelings between them: her gratitude for his remembered and renewed kindness; his relief that she'd come to him at the station, instead of surprising Sarah at home, or seeking out Charlotte on her own at school. He gripped the door handle with one hand and mindfully withdrew the other, which had somehow snaked around to press the small of her back.
Careful,
he thought (his life's motto).

Her smile was sultry, close-lipped.
Thank you,
her eyes said, with the barest gleam of triumph. She'd gotten what she'd come for.

As if in afterthought, she asked, “How will I know Carly?”

You'll know,
he thought but couldn't bring himself to say. “Black T-bird, red interior, white dress,” he said instead.

Standing in the open doorway, he watched her go. Even from this angle, it was easy to see the ways in which she favored Sarah. Same broad shoulders and slim hips; same elegant, straight-spined gait; same whorl in the curls at the back of her head—though white blond instead of dark chestnut.

When she reached the Chrysler, she gave a small wave good-bye. Avery, fighting off a fog of confusion, went back into the kitchen. He busied himself with emptying the ashtray, closing the open window, locking the rear door, erasing all evidence of her visit. But the scent of her perfume—spiced roses—still hung over the sink.

There'll be hundreds of people watching the parade. What's the harm in inviting one more?
Who you trying to kid?

That kiss at the end, it was nothing.
Would Sarah think so?

Well, if Sarah was here…He'd already calculated the meaning and potential measure of what he'd done. And he was not proud.

S
TEVE WAS TAKING A
smoke break in the office. The mechanic stood in his habitual at-ease stance—one foot on the rung of the stool, forearms crisscrossed atop his jacked-up knee. He was frowning down at the desktop when Avery returned.

“Looky here,” Steve said. A wave of his cigarette hand sent smoke curling over the front pages of the two newspapers, the local
Orlando Sentinel
and Kitty's discarded
New York Times,
laid out carefully side by side.

The
Sentinel
was dominated by two large images: the recently installed HAWK and Nike Hercules air defense missiles at Boca Chica Naval Air Station on Key West, their menacing tips trained south toward Havana, and a line of US tanks at the ready in Berlin. Both photos bristled with American strength, firepower, and defiance of the Soviet threat.

The
Times,
meanwhile, featured enlarged, carefully labeled surveillance photos: President Kennedy's “unmistakable evidence” of two Soviet medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) sites near San Cristóbal, Cuba, and two intercontinental range (ICBM) sites at Guanajay and Remedios. Avery marveled at the small shapes labeled
SOVIET CONVOY, MISSILE TRANSPORTERS, ERECTOR/LAUNCHERS,
and slash-marked
LAUNCH PADS
identified by US intelligence.

He cocked an eyebrow in Steve's direction. “Any mention of the U-2s? Where they're stationed?”

Steve took a long drag. “Not a peep.”

Since Saturday, Avery had searched the
Orlando Sentinel,
which Steve insisted on calling the
Slantinel,
for an explanation, an update, or even a mention of the onslaught of military activity overhead at McCoy, and outside clogging the train tracks and traffic on the Trail. So far, the local paper had been mum. Even after the President's speech, the term
U-2
—the name of the all-important spy planes based nearby—had been notably absent from any reporting.

“Somebody's called a gag,” Steve told him. “Keep the yokels in the dark; sidestep a panic that might slow down the convoys.”

“Since when did the military trump freedom of the press?”

“Betcha a buck they'll never put the name of that plane in print.”

“Bet you're right,” Avery replied, turning back to the
Times
text. “Says here San Cristóbal is in
western
Cuba.”

Steve's look said he'd made the same connection—Emilio was from western Cuba.

Avery remembered the teenager's suspicions, his tale of corner fences crushed by too-long trucks. How would confirmation of his worst fears affect the boy? “Think we ought to keep this from him?”

“It's the kid's own mama, right? Seems to me he's got a right to know.”

Avery felt the color draining from his face. Had Steve made the connection between Kitty and Sarah? Had he guessed the truth about Charlotte?

After a moment of awkward silence, Steve ground out his cigarette. “Well, if you've got the pumps, guess I'll get back to it.”

Avery nodded without looking at him.

Steve took a few steps, then stopped. “Who was she, by the way?”

“She who?” Avery asked, as casually as he could manage.

“C'mon…the blond bombshell with the legs?” He made a sound like the growl of a cat.

Had Kitty's hair and legs distracted Steve's attention from her face? Was it possible he didn't know? Avery tucked two fingers into his shirt pocket and came out with Kitty's card, offered it up for Steve's inspection.

“Bayshore Realty?”

Avery shrugged. “She's got a client interested in local rental property. Did a title search and my name came up on multiple addresses.” Which was true. “Wanted to pick my brain about local rents, taxes, schools, and so forth.” Which was not.

Steve looked wounded. “I own my own duplex. She coulda picked my brain. And anythin' else she had a mind to.”

“Luck of the draw, I guess,” Avery said carefully.

Steve sniffed the card. “Wild Rose of Sharon,” he announced with a sigh and handed it back. “My first wife's favorite.”

Avery moved behind the desk. As Steve went back to the service bay, he unlocked the middle desk drawer. Then he stashed Kitty's fragrant card in his zippered leather bank pouch, beside the shiny jumble of Charlotte's dog tags.

T
HE PHONE ON THE NIGHTSTAND
woke Sarah, dazed from a dreamless sleep. She rolled onto her back then onto her other side, noting the time—nearly
eleven
—and grabbed the receiver off its cradle.

“He-hello, Avery residence.”

“Sarah, it's Edith. You been to the Cherry Plaza yet?”

“You said one o'clock, remember?” She sat up, finger raking tangled hair out of her eyes.

“Glad I caught you, then. Listen, I just heard from General Betts's office—not the general himself, his attaché—who's asked that we soft-pedal any criticism of the public shelters. Bad for the public morale, he said.”

Sarah, still groggy and bone-weary from weeks of Edith's unending demands, felt the hard flash of resentment. “Is he saying public morale's more important than the truth?”

“Well, at this point, it
is
whatever it
is.
And we don't want to be responsible for setting off any sort of panic.”

“But…”

“Besides, Sarah—and I'm sure you learned this from your mother, as I did from mine—‘you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.' ”

That phrase, Sarah remembered, had indeed been one of her childhood's staples. Mama used it often, until one particularly embarrassing night at the Tuscaloosa Country Club, when Daddy punched a fellow club member in the face and broke his nose. “Oh, Colton,” Mama cried then, “what
were
you thinking?” “The man's an ass, Dolores. And everybody knows it.” “But surely—” “Now don't start with that crap about catchin' more flies with honey. Makin' nice with a bully is a complete waste of time—‘turn the other cheek' with a guy like that, you're just askin' for a second slap on the face!”

“Sarah?” Edith croaked. “You still there?”

“What flies, Edith?”

“Pardon me?”

“Exactly what flies are we trying to catch?”

“Oh, my dear, surely I've mentioned it. The general has as much as guaranteed us spots in the best shelter in town.”

“Which is…?”

“The storage vault at LaBelle Furs!” Edith's voice quivered with excitement. “All the best families will be there!”

So that's what all this—the committee work, the shelter show, the inspections—was about? Edith being able to ride out a disaster in fur-lined luxury? Sarah dropped the hand holding the receiver into her lap. It was pale blue, a new special-order Princess phone whose Southern Bell slogan, she remembered, was, “It's little…it's lovely…it lights.”

“Sarah?” Edith's voice, coming from the seven small holes in the receiver's top, sounded annoying, insect-like. “Sarah?”

Sarah raised the receiver back to her ear just long enough to say, “Edith, I have to go,” then recradled the phone.