Carolina Moon (21 page)

“No, I haven’t seen him today.” Yet.

“Boy works so hard.” She sighed, nibbled on the little frosted cookie. “I wish he’d settle down, find a woman who’d help make a home with him.”

“Ah. Hmmm.”

“Oh, now no point in being flustered, sweetie.” Boots kept nibbling, and her eyes were sharp enough to pin even a clever butterfly like Faith. “He’s a grown man, and you’re a beautiful woman. Why shouldn’t you be attracted to each other? I know my boy has sex.”

Well, Faith thought, there you have it. “But you’d prefer he didn’t have it with me.”

“Now, I don’t believe I said any such thing.” She selected another cookie, held it out to Faith. “We’re private here, Faith, and both of us women. That means we know just how to draw a man into doing what we want him to, at least most of the time. You got a wild streak. I don’t mind that. Could be I’d pictured some other kind of woman for my Wade, but he pictures you. I love him, so I want for him what he wants for himself. That appears to be you.”

“It’s not like that between us, Mrs. Mooney.”

The formal title amused Boots. If she wasn’t mistaken, the use of it meant Faith was intimidated. “Isn’t it? You keep coming back to him, don’t you? Ever ask yourself why? No,” she said, lifting a finger tipped with pearly pink polish. “Maybe you should just think about that. I want you to know I’ve got an affection for you, always have. That surprises you?”

Stupefied her. “Yes. I suppose.”

“It shouldn’t. You’re a smart and clever young woman, and haven’t had it as easy as some like to think. I like you fine, Faith. But if you hurt my Wade this time around, why, I’ll just have to snap that lovely neck of yours like a twig, that’s all.”

“Well.” Faith bit into the cookie, narrowed her eyes. “That clears everything up.”

Suddenly Boots’s face was soft again and her eyes mild and dreamy as always. She let out a light, trilling laugh, and to Faith’s confusion wrapped her in a hug, kissed her cheek.

“I do like you.” With her thumb, she wiped the imprint of her lipstick from Faith’s cheek. “Now, you sit down and eat your cookie till you feel a little better. Since I’m feeling
just fine, I believe I’ll go out and buy something else. There’s nothing like shopping, is there?” she added as she pranced out the door.

“Jesus.” Speechless, Faith sat down. And ate her cookie.

Tory kept busy, but saw Faith go out ten minutes later. Just as she saw Cade come in, his aunt Rosie in tow, during the first lull of the afternoon.

It was impossible not to recognize Rosie Sikes LaRue Decater Smith. At sixty-four, the woman made just as much of a statement as she had at her debutante ball, when she’d shocked society by doing an exuberant barefoot jitterbug on the tennis court of the country club. She’d married Henry LaRue, of the Savannah LaRues, when she’d been seventeen, and lost him to Korea before their first anniversary.

She’d grieved for six months, then had opted to play the merry widow, flaunted a hot-blooded affair with a struggling artist, and suspected Communist, whom she’d married for the hell of it at twenty. She and the artist both espoused free love and held what many considered orgies at their estate on Jekyll Island.

She buried husband number two there after nineteen tumultuous years, when he tumbled from a third-story window after spending the evening with a bottle of Napoleon brandy and a twenty-three-year-old model.

Some said foul play was involved, but nothing had been proved.

At the ripe age of fifty-eight, she married a longtime admirer, more out of pity than love. He died two years later, on their second anniversary, after being gored and partially devoured by a rogue lion during their second honeymoon trip to Africa.

Burying three husbands, and an untold number of lovers, hadn’t dimmed Rosie’s style. She wore a wig, at least Tory assumed it was a wig, of platinum blond, a flowing floor-length dress striped like a red-and-white awning, and enough jewelry to topple a lesser woman.

Tory spotted the gleam of diamonds among the plastic beads.

“Toys!” she said in her rusty squeak of a voice and rubbed her hands together. “Stand back, boy. I’m in a shopping mood.”

She made a beeline for the display of blown-glass paperweights and began tucking them into the crook of her arm.

Torn between amusement and alarm, Tory hurried over. “May I help you with those, Miss Rosie?”

“Need six of them. The prettiest six.”

“Yes, of course. Ah, for gifts?”

“Gifts, hell. For me.” She clanked glass carelessly together and made Tory’s heart stop.

“Why don’t I put these up on the counter for you?”

“Good, they’re heavy.” Rosie’s eyes, weighed down by false eyelashes that disconcertingly resembled spiders, finally fixed on Tory’s face. “You’re the girl who used to play with little Hope.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Got a way about you, I recollect. I had my palm read once by a gypsy in Transylvania. Said how I’d have myself four husbands, but damned if I want another.” Rosie stuck out a hand crowded with rings and bracelets. “What do you say?”

“I’m sorry.” Instead of feeling awkward, Tory was marvelously entertained. “I don’t read palms.”

“Tea leaves then, or some such. One of my lovers, young fellow from Boston, claimed he was Lord Byron in another life. Don’t expect to hear that kind of thing from a Yankee, do you? Cade, get on over here and hold on to these glass things. What’s the point in having a man around if you can’t use him as a pack mule,” she said to Tory with a wink.

“I have no idea. Would you like some iced tea, Miss Rosie? Some cookies?”

“I’ll just work up an appetite first. Now, what the blue hell is this thing?” She picked up a polished wooden stand with a hole in it.

“It’s a wine rest.”

“Don’t that beat all? Why anybody’d want to give a decent
bottle of wine time to rest is beyond me. Wrap me up two of those. Lucy Talbott!” She shouted across the room to another customer. “What’re you buying there?” And was off like a rocket, red and white stripes flapping.

“We just can’t break Aunt Rosie out of her shell,” Cade said with a smile. “And how’s your day going?”

“Very well. Thank you for the flowers. They’re lovely.”

“I’m glad you liked them. I’m hoping you’ll let me take you out to dinner tonight, to celebrate your first day.”

“I—” She already begged off the evening at her uncle’s, switching that to a Sunday family dinner the following day. She was going to be tired, and wired, she reminded herself. Not fit company. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll come by your place around seven-thirty. That work for you?”

“Yes, that’ll be perfect. Cade, does your aunt really want all these things? I don’t know what anyone could want with six glass paperweights.”

“She’ll enjoy them, then she’ll forget where she bought them and make up some story about how she found them in a dusty little shop in Beirut. Or claim she stole them from her lover the Breton count when she left him. Then she’ll give them away to the paperboy or the next Jehovah’s Witness who comes to her door.”

“Oh. Well.”

“You’ll want to keep an eye on her. She tends to slip things in her pockets. Absentmindedly,” he continued, when Tory’s eyes went wide. “You just keep track of what goes in, and add it to her bill at the end.”

“But—” Even as she glanced over, she saw Rosie slide a spoon rest into the wide slit pocket of her dress. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Tory rushed over, leaving Cade chuckling.

“Rosie hasn’t changed any,” Iris commented.

“No, ma’am, not a whit. Bless her for it. How are you, Miz Mooney?”

“Fiddle fit. You’re looking fit yourself. Grew into your feet well enough. How’s your family?”

“They’re well, thank you.”

“I was sorry to hear about your daddy. He was a good
man, and an interesting one. You don’t always get both in one.”

“I suppose you don’t. He always spoke highly of you.”

“He gave me a chance to earn a decent living after I lost my husband, to put food on my table for my children. I don’t forget that. You got something of him around your eyes. Are you a fair man like he was, now that you’re full-grown, Kincade?”

“I try to be.” As Rosie let out a cackle and batted at the wind chimes to send them singing, Cade glanced over, met Tory’s exasperated eyes. “Tory’s got her hands full.”

“She can deal with it. She’s good at dealing with things. Sometimes, maybe, a little too good.”

“She gets her back up when you want to help.”

“She can,” Iris agreed. “From where I’m standing, I don’t think the only thing you want to do about Tory is help her. I’d say there’s something more basic on your mind along with that, and as I hope I’m correct in that assumption, I’d like to give you something everyone needs from time to time and no one likes to take.”

He adjusted the balance of the paperweights he still carried. “And that would be advice?”

She beamed at him. “You’re a smart boy. Always thought so. Advice it is. Just one little bit of it. Don’t drag your feet. If there’s one thing every woman deserves at least once in her life, it’s to be swept off hers. Now, give me some of those things before they get banged together and cracked.”

“She’s not sure of me yet.” Cade transferred two of the paperweights and carried the other four to the counter. “She needs some time.”

“She tell you that?”

“More or less.”

Iris just rolled her eyes. “Men. Don’t you know a woman who says that’s either one of three things. She’s not really interested, she’s being coy, or she’s been hurt before. Tory’d tell you straight out if she wasn’t interested, there isn’t a coy bone in her body, so that leaves number three. You see that man over there?”

Baffled, Cade glanced over to where Cecil was arranging fresh cookies on a plate with hands the size of whole smoked hams. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You hurt my baby, and I’ll send that big old bear after you with a pipe wrench. But since I don’t think you’re going to do that, I’d suggest you show her that there are some men worth trusting.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Since my girl is trying to convince herself that the two of you are no more than friendly acquaintances, I’d say work faster.”

Chew on that, Iris mused, then moved off to try to prod another customer into a sale.

“She put five napkin rings into her pocket.” At six-ten, with the door locked and Cecil nodding off in the stockroom, Tory plopped on her counter stool and threw up her hands. “Five. Now, I could see, in a twisted way, taking four or six. But what kind of person takes five napkin rings?”

“Don’t imagine she was thinking of them as a set.”

“Add two spoon rests, three wine toppers, and a pair of salad tongs. She put those in her pocket while I was standing right there talking to her. Put them in her pocket, smiled, then took off her pink plastic beads and gave them to me.”

Still bemused, Tory fingered the beads around her neck.

“She likes you. Rosie’s always giving things to people she takes a shine to.”

“I don’t feel right charging her for all those things. She might not even have wanted them. Lord, Gran, she spent over a thousand dollars. A thousand,” she repeated, and pressed a hand to her stomach. “I think I might be sick after all.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll be happy soon as you let yourself be. Now, I’m going to go give Cecil a shake and move him along so you have a chance to catch your breath. You come on by J.R.’s around one tomorrow. It’s too long since we had the family together.”

“I’ll be there. Gran, I don’t know how to thank you for staying all day. You must be tired.”

“My feet are smarting some, and I’m ready to put them up and let Boots give me a glass of wine.” She leaned over to kiss Tory’s cheek. “You celebrate, you hear?”

Celebrate, Tory thought, after she’d made her notes, tidied, and locked up. She could barely think, much less celebrate. She’d gotten through the day. More than gotten through it, she told herself on the dazed drive home. She’d proven that she was back, to stay, back to make a mark.

Not just survival this time, but success. Some might look at her and see the small, hollow-eyed girl in hand-me-downs. But it wasn’t going to matter. More would look and see just what she’d made herself. What she wanted to be.

She would make that matter.

She wasn’t going to fail, and she wasn’t going to run. This time, finally, she was going to win.

The wonder of that began to set in as she turned into her lane, as she saw the house as it had been, and as it was. Herself as she had been. As she was.

Unable to fight them back any longer, she laid her head on the steering wheel and let the tears come.

She was sitting on the ground, trying not to cry. Only babies cried. And she was
not
a crybaby. But the tears leaked out despite her.

She’d skinned her knees and her elbow and the heel of her hand when she’d fallen off the bike. The scraped skin burned and seeped blood. She wanted to go to Lilah and be hugged and petted and soothed. Lilah would give her a cookie and make it all better.

She didn’t care about learning how to ride a stupid bike anyway. She hated the stupid bike.

It lay beside her, a downed soldier with one wheel still spinning in a mocking whirl as she lay her head on her folded arms and sniffled.

She was just six.

“Hope! What the heck are you doing?” Cade rushed down the lane, his Nikes bulleting on the gravel. His father had dropped him off at the entrance to Beaux Reves, giving him his freedom for the rest of the Saturday morning. His
whole world had been wrapped around how quickly he could get his bike and ride to the swamp to meet up with Wade and Dwight.

And here was his old and beloved three-speed, crashed, with his baby sister sprawled beside it.

He wasn’t sure which he wanted to do more, yell at her or croon to his wounded bike.

“Oh man, look at this! You ruined the paint. Damn it.” He hissed the last. He was just beginning to try out swear words in secret. “You got no business taking my bike. You got your own.”

“It’s a baby bike.” She lifted her face and tears streaked through the fine layer of dirt on her cheeks. “Mama won’t let Daddy take off the training wheels.”