June (33 page)

Tate scanned Cassie with a withering look. “Care about me?” She snorted. “Please.” She shook her head in weary disbelief. “It’ll be the sweetest moment of my life when I finally learn we aren’t related.” Before Cassie could process that comment, Tate turned to Nick and said, in a steely voice, “When I wake up, you’ll have a plan to get me out of this hellhole.” She took to the stairs.

Nick’s phone rang; he moved into the dining room to answer. Hank retreated to the kitchen. Elda groaned as she rose from the couch. Cassie opened her mouth to appeal for solidarity, but Elda shook her head. “Switzerland,” she repeated, and then she was gone too.

From the dining room, Nick’s voice was muffled but angry. Cassie could hardly bear to think of him; she could hardly bear to think of any of it.

And then: that horrible sound again. The sound that had started everything: the doorbell.

The only way to end its wail was to answer the door, even though Cassie knew, from Nick’s grimacing appearance in the foyer, that he didn’t want her to. But this was her house—her hellhole—and the sound was a cruelty that she had to end. As the door swung into the foyer, she braced herself for the flash of a hundred photographers.

It was the mailman. She had known all along there was a mailman, but this was the first time she’d looked into his face. He was middle-aged, with a nicely tended mustache. He reminded Cassie a bit of Mr. McFeely from
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,
and she felt herself sweeten.

Down on the sidewalk, a paparazzo started clicking away. Cassie tried to think what the sound of his shutter reminded her of, but she couldn’t name it; it was a threatening sound, a clattering, so different from the friendly tick her camera made.

Then the herd swarmed onto the sidewalk, elbowing and angling for a better view of her, and the racket was amplified a thousand times. She noticed that a policeman had shown up, waving back the crowd with a confused expression. Neighbors had come out onto their porches. Her doorbell would be ringing a lot in the next few days.

“Return to sender,” the mailman said, holding up an Express Mail package.

Cassie took the envelope, recognizing the address: it was the letter she’d addressed to “Lindie” in Chicago. She’d been crazy to think it would be so easy to locate someone with answers. The only answer lay in the secret code her cells held, planted there before she was even born.

“Thanks for bringing this back,” she said, distracted by what she knew she had to do. Tate wanted to leave anyway. And Cassie couldn’t bear the thought of Nick anywhere near her, not anymore.

The mailman handed over his bundle of envelopes, the stack he usually ka-thunked through the slot in the door. He tossed his head back toward the throng of reporters now shouting Cassie’s name. “You kill someone or something?”

She felt a sad smile lift her lips. “Apparently.”

Then she went into her great-uncle Lemon’s office and tugged the pocket doors as close to closed as they’d go, scraping them along the hardwood floor to create some semblance of privacy.

If she had to make this phone call, she was going to do it alone.

A sharp knock awoke Lindie. When she was little, she would have wondered if such a knock, just before dawn, signaled her mother’s return, but, as she turned down the stairs, Eben’s snores sawing over her, she found she was too weary to play that guessing game.

She’d spent Sunday, the day after the party, with her father. But really she’d spent the day inside her head, mulling over all that had happened the night before, especially how angry Clyde had been, and the promises he’d made to Ripvogle about tearing down Two Oaks. He couldn’t do that, could he? Especially if Apatha was inheriting it? The thought of Two Oaks destroyed made her sick to her stomach, and she’d had a fitful night of half dreams. Come Friday, Hollywood would snap back into its suitcase and leave forever. And, whomever June chose, she’d be leaving Lindie behind. The prospect of all that would soon change made Lindie’s stomach roil. And now it was barely morning and she was due on set and someone was insistently knocking at the door.

It was Diane DeSoto. She didn’t belong out there, on the creaking, unpainted porch, white gloves covering her dainty fingers, wearing the same black suit she’d had on the night she came to St. Jude. An ivory silk scarf was knotted around her throat. Her platinum hair was curled up and under; her lips were painted stark red. She stood only a few feet from where the girls had watched Jack take her by the neck two nights before. But she bore no traces of their argument. In fact, she smiled.

“Well, hello there, Linda Sue.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on set?” Lindie’s voice was croaky. She knew she must look a sight.

“I took the day off,” said Diane. She was scheduled to film four scenes.

Diane laughed at Lindie’s expression. “Well, get some shoes on. And run a comb through that hair.”

“Ma’am?” Lindie noticed then that the Olds was idling at the curb, with Thomas at the wheel.

“I’m taking you on that shopping trip I promised. Now hurry up, we want to get to Columbus before lunch.”

“But, ma’am…”

Diane leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. Lindie pulled back, thinking Diane’s serene face might suddenly turn cruel. But instead she tapped Lindie’s nose. “I’ve taken care of everything, little lamb. Casey said you’ve earned the break.”

Lindie hesitated. There were so many reasons not to go: Clyde. June. Work. But here stood a beautiful movie star with an invitation to spend the day in the city. Lindie had been to Columbus a dozen times, but she had a feeling that that Columbus was markedly different from the one she would visit with Diane.

“Oh, c’mon, Linda Sue, where’s your sense of adventure?”

Ten minutes later, Thomas gunned the engine as they left the Welcome to St. Jude sign in their dust.

Clyde’s Olds—which might as well belong to the movie stars, even though it would stay in St. Jude once they were gone—sported hunter green leather seats with a dashboard and steering wheel to match. It sailed past the cornfields on the razor-straight, two-lane road. Lindie suddenly understood what it meant to leave your worries behind. Clyde and Eben would work out their differences, wouldn’t they? June would find happiness, no matter who she chose. Ripvogle would work it out with the governor, and Cheryl Ann would come to accept Apatha and Lemon’s union. Lindie was in a movie star’s car because a movie star had picked her. She leaned her head back against the soft seat and let the Ohio countryside skip on by.

Ten minutes later, June stood at the top of the Two Oaks stairs listening to Jack sweet-talk Cheryl Ann. He’d had the gall to invite himself right in, and could Cheryl Ann please give his extra thanks to Uncle Lem when he was done with his nap, and also, oh yes, he’d almost forgotten, he and Diane had arranged, as a thank-you, for a surprise for June—would that be all right? Something special, since she was so dear to them. They’d have her home in time for bed.

On the landing, June’s bare feet were warm against the floorboards. She heard her mother clap her hands in delight at the thought of two movie stars taking her daughter out on the town, never mind what the wagging tongues might say. Never mind that June didn’t see any trace of Diane in that little red roadster in which Jack had just roared up. Never mind that June felt sick to her stomach whenever the memory of Jack’s hand on Diane’s throat flashed before her eyes, that moment when he’d shown himself to be something other than the man who’d moved his fingers up into her and made her feel infinite.

But June knew that hiding on the landing would only delay the inevitable. It was best to face Jack sooner than later. So she slipped into her shoes and pasted on a smile and stepped out the front door as Jack held it open, and waved to Cheryl Ann, who flapped a handkerchief from the wide porch.

Jack’s right hand rested along the top of the white calfskin passenger seat as they raced over the town line.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

But he whistled and winked and drummed on the wheel, red to match the exterior of the shiny new machine.

“Whose car is this?”

“Nice ride, ain’t it? Thought we’d need a car for when we drive back across the country on Friday.” So he believed he’d won her then. “Thought we could stop in Arkansas.”

“Arkansas?” She balked.

He cleared his throat. “Meet my folks.”

The immensity of what he was proposing slid, like an ice cube, down June’s spine. She felt, briefly, that she might actually be sick all over this fancy new car.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on set?” she asked.

“I’m not on the schedule today. And I’d rather not watch Diane flub her lines for ten hours.”

“Does she know you’re with me?”

He let the other woman’s name slip out the unrolled window. He asked June to light him a cigarette. When it was clamped into the corner of his mouth, he grinned like a little boy with penny candy on his tongue. June couldn’t bear to look at him. She pressed her face against her window and filled her eyes with the same green light off the cornfield that Lindie had sped past only twenty minutes before.

“I love having you all to myself.” He leaned into her neck for a kiss.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Casanova.”

He pulled back in surprise. But soon he forgot her concern. He smoked, and fiddled with the radio, and speculated on rumors that the Dodgers would soon be leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles. June didn’t know what surprised her more: how Jack could elbow and tease her without even noticing her anger, or how stupid she’d been to think of giving up her whole life for him.

The Olds was ten miles from Columbus when Diane requested that Thomas turn off the road. They exited onto a country lane that ran perpendicular to the main road: the way to someone’s farm, lined with trees and not much else. Thomas started to slow, but Diane instructed him to drive on. “I’d like privacy,” she said, and that was when it really sank in that Lindie and Thomas, Jack’s main accomplices in his quest to woo June, were now completely alone with the woman who believed Jack should be hers.

Thomas found a shady spot by a field of alfalfa. In the distance, Lindie could make out a silo and a barn and a throng of Holsteins. The smell of freshly cut grass whirlpooled with the tang of manure through the open windows. Diane gazed out at the day, as though taking in a beautiful view instead of a tangle of weeds and tree limbs. In the rearview mirror, Thomas gave nothing to Lindie but a blink.

Diane turned her focus onto the buttery inside of the car. “I know Jack has made you both party to all sorts of shenanigans. Poor little June.”

Thomas groaned, surprising both Lindie and Diane. “Leave me out of it.”

“But you’re in it already,” Diane pushed back shrilly, “so very in it, Thomas, wouldn’t you agree?” He didn’t reply. Lindie’s heart was already thrashing in the confines of her chest.

Diane cooled her tone. “I’m sure Jack made you believe that this is all very special, that he’s never felt this way before. But you must understand: this is what he does. He is a philanderer.” She pronounced the word delicately, and didn’t stop to ask if Lindie knew what it meant. “It’s not his fault women always love him back. But a good girl like June—none of us want to see her get into trouble.”

Thomas and Lindie held their tongues.

“Good. I’m glad you’re not denying it.”

“Miss DeSoto,” Lindie choked in a panicked voice, because she knew she should at least try to file a protest, but Diane silenced the girl with a raised hand.

“I’ve been lucky to find a friend in Clyde Danvers. You see, I have Jack’s best interests at heart, and Mr. Danvers has June’s, so it works out for all of us. Not to mention that Mr. Danvers seems to know all sorts of helpful things about the people in your town.”

Worry knotted itself in Lindie’s gut.

“Take you, Linda Sue. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, although, as Diane went on, Lindie turned that answer over in her mind.

“But you haven’t had much help, I’m afraid. Unnatural mother. And your father does his best, I’m sure, but no man can be expected to raise a girl alone.”

Thomas shifted in the front seat. The air in the car seemed to thicken, as though it was no longer air but a heavier atomic compound, unstable and prone to explosion. Lindie found herself looking at the floor, kicking at a pebble that had made its way in.

“Now, your father is a man with a lot of power. He could choose to use that power for good. He could choose to keep the interests of the rest of St. Jude in mind. But instead he’s been snooping into other people’s business.” Lindie’d guessed this was where this was leading, and she tried to think how to best defend Eben against Clyde’s accusations. But Diane surprised her with: “Course, I don’t care about all that. All I care about is getting Jack and me back to California in one piece.” She leaned toward Lindie. “Look at me, Linda Sue.” Lindie did—she had to. Diane untied her scarf. There, on her skin, sat the bruise Jack’s fingers had left behind. Diane made sure Lindie got a good view. “What if I were to tell my producer, Alan Shields, and Clyde Danvers, and, oh, for good measure, the police chief, that your dear old daddy attacked me after the party on Saturday?”

“He didn’t,” Lindie yelped.

“I imagine the good, upstanding citizens of St. Jude would want to run an animal like that out of town.”

“He didn’t do that to you.” Lindie’s teeth were gritted now.

Diane tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, the way a cat might assess a delicious-looking birdie. “Do you have proof?”

“I saw Jack do it,” Lindie replied.

If that threw Diane off, she gave no sign. Instead she fastened the scarf back in place and continued, “And you, Thomas.” Thomas turned to look her in the eye, betraying nothing. “What do you think that same mob would do if they discovered that you are not Apatha’s nephew at all? That you are, in fact, her son? And that your father is not just any ordinary man but likely Lemon Gray Neely?”

A slick of sweat broke out on Thomas’s forehead. Lindie understood from his expression that the possibility of this paternity was not news to him, but that it was a secret he’d believed would never be found out.

Diane continued. “When Clyde first mentioned it, I couldn’t believe him! And then—I tell you, Clyde knows so many interesting things!—he told me you’re wanted for questioning in a case down in Louisiana? Seems a white girl has found herself with child? Must run in the family, I suppose.”

Thomas’s eyes had dropped. But Diane didn’t let up. She seemed so different from the meek, unsure person she was on set; here, she was sharp, conniving, and organized. Lindie realized that, if she hadn’t been on the receiving end of Diane’s attacks, she might genuinely admire her. And then the gears started turning in Lindie’s mind: if Clyde knew Thomas was Lemon and Apatha’s son—which, as far as Lindie knew, even her father Eben didn’t know—then what else did Clyde know? Did he know Apatha was going to inherit Two Oaks? Maybe he’d already figured out some way to get around that, to keep Apatha from getting any of what Lemon was leaving her. June would marry Artie for nothing, and Two Oaks would be torn down anyway. Lindie had to find a way to stop him. But it was impossible to think clearly because Diane was still talking.

“For what it’s worth, I happen to believe that love is love no matter your color. But I’m not sure everyone in St. Jude agrees with me. The small-town mind doesn’t differ much, no matter where you find it.”

“You can’t prove any of that,” Thomas said weakly. Lindie wanted him to call Diane a liar, to put her out on the side of the road by the cow manure and leave her in his dust, but of course he did no such thing.

For her part, Diane was looking quite pleased with herself. “In fact I can. But I’m not even sure that’s necessary. I imagine that the good people of St. Jude would only need an anonymous tip that they’ve been harboring a dangerous criminal to turn them against him.” It almost sounded as though she’d memorized these sentences. If Lindie hadn’t tried to help her learn lines, she’d have thought, for sure, that reciting a monologue was the way that Diane had gained such confidence and command.

Diane pouted as though she pitied Thomas. “If you haven’t learned it already, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who think secrets can be kept, and those who seek to discover them. I’m the second kind, I’ve learned, and I believe I’ve found a kindred spirit in Mr. Danvers. The good news is, once I’ve gathered up secrets, I like to keep them. You can see, for example, that these tidbits were desperate to be used today. But, on the whole, I prefer to keep my collections to myself.” She winked at Lindie.

“What you said about my father isn’t a secret,” Lindie said. “It’s a lie.”

Diane sighed, as though Lindie was just incorrigible. “Simply tell me where Jack and June’s happy little clubhouse is. Tell me and I’ll keep all this”—her hand gestured to the muck of their conversation—“to my grave.”

“No deal.” Lindie crossed her arms. She would have gotten out of the car herself, but they were miles from home. She had to give Diane credit; she’d planned this well.

Thomas cleared his throat and turned back to Lindie. “Think of your father,” he said gently, as if Diane wasn’t there.

“I won’t agree to be blackmailed over something that isn’t even true!” Lindie cried.

He sighed. “June’s always looking out for number one, isn’t she?”

Lindie rolled her eyes.

“Maybe you should do the same.”

“Just where they’ve been meeting. That’s it,” Diane nudged.

Thomas told her. Lindie didn’t stop him.