Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (23 page)

“Congratulations,” Lavonne said, when he told her. “Are they yours?”

“Of course they're mine,” Leonard said irritably, followed quickly by, “they were born a little early. I never actually slept with her until after the firm party.”

“Well, technically, we were still married at that time,” Lavonne said. “Which makes you a bigger asshole than I originally thought.”

“I may need to borrow some money,” Leonard said.

“Good luck with that,” Lavonne said.

Leonard had somehow managed to hang on to the beach house during the financial melee that followed Boone & Broadwell's dissolution, although Lavonne had insisted he mortgage it and put the money into a college trust fund for the girls. It was at the beach house that Leonard, Christy, and their sons had spent spring break with Louise and Ashley. The girls affectionately referred to their half-brothers as the Devil's Spawn. The twins' real names were Preston and Landon.

“Landon threw the cat off the balcony,” Ashley told Lavonne when she had called two days earlier. “Christy got hysterical and while she was downstairs checking on the cat, Preston stuck a fork in the toaster and set fire to the kitchen.”

“Where was Daddy when all this was going on?”

“He was playing golf. But Christy says his golfing days are over.”

Lavonne laughed all afternoon. When Joe called, she told him and they laughed together. But when Leonard pulled up in front of her little house in a brand-new, bright-yellow Hummer, Lavonne decided she might have to rethink the generosity thing.

“What'd you do, Leonard, pillage your clients' trust funds?” she said, pointing to the urban assault vehicle in her driveway.

Leonard, who had just spent five hours in an enclosed space with Preston and Landon, not to mention a wife on the cusp of a PMS meltdown, was not amused. “Where's the furniture?” he said, all squinty-eyed and sullen. His face was sunburned and he'd lost a substantial amount of hair in the last year. Lavonne tried not to stare at his sad comb-over and pointed with her thumb toward the shed.

“It's in there. Be careful not to mess with Eadie's stuff.”

“Eadie?” he said. “What's she doing here?”

“She's visiting. You might need a bigger trailer than that,” she said, looking at the U-Haul attached to the bumper.

Leonard didn't say anything. He put his head down and trudged toward the shed. Inside the Hummer, Christy was screaming at the boys to leave the cat alone. Landon had figured out how to unbuckle his seat belt and he'd sprung his brother, too, and now they had the unfortunate feline cornered in the luggage compartment. The passenger door opened and Christy swung down over the running board like she was rappelling off a vertical cliff face. Lavonne was surprised to see she had put on some weight. She stopped and stared sullenly at Lavonne. Behind her there was a flash of brown followed by a squalling sound, and Christy turned in time to see the family cat disappearing under the neighbor's hedge.

“No, kitty,” Christy screamed. “Here, kitty-kitty. Here, kitty-kitty.” But kitty had streaked across the neighbor's yard and was halfway down the block. With any luck, he'd make Florida by nightfall. Landon stuck his cherubic face around the edge of the opened door. He saw Lavonne and grinned. “Landon, you stay in the truck,” Christy said over her shoulder, hurrying after the escaping cat. “Stay in the truck, Landon.”

Landon swung down out of the Hummer like a monkey in a banyan tree. Preston, the more cautious of the two, turned around and slid out of the vehicle backward, the way he had been taught to safely come down a flight of stairs. They were loose by the time Lavonne reached them but she squatted down and pretended to be looking at something in the grass, and when they circled back, she caught one in each arm. They were dressed in identical outfits and probably weighed about forty pounds each. Lavonne was breathing heavily by the time she set them down in her living room.

Winston came out of the kitchen and stood there, looking at her sadly.

“Kitty!” Landon screamed. They were developmentally advanced for their age, the way mathematical geniuses and serial killers are apt to be. Winston had once gone up against a rottweiler in the street, but he took one look at Landon and Preston and headed for the back bedroom. Lavonne found him later, cowering under the bed.

She handed each of the boys a pair of wooden spoons and two cooking pots and when Leonard came in later they were beating on the pots with the steady precision of jazz musicians. “You might want to invest in a couple of drum kits,” she said loudly. She was sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper.

Leonard stood in the doorway looking at his sons with the same expression Winston had used. “I need a drink,” he said.

“How about some sweet tea?” she asked, rising.

“How about a beer?” he said, mopping his brow with the back of his hand.

She stepped around the boys. Stopping in the kitchen doorway and turning around to ask Leonard if he wanted a lime in his Corona, she caught him.

He was staring at her ass like he'd just seen the eighth wonder of the world.

C
HRISTY APPEARED LATER, EMPTY-HANDED, LOOKING TIRED AND
despondent. She shook her head when Lavonne asked her if she wanted something to drink. “Whiskers done flew the coop,” she said to Leonard.

Leonard, who sat on the sofa looking like a man on the edge of something dangerous, lifted his beer and said, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.”

Christy, who had no appreciation of Martin Luther King, in particular, and irony, in general, said, “First thing I'm gonna do when I get back to Atlanta is get me a new cat.”

“No more cats,” Leonard said. “They all run off. They're too smart to stay.” He burped loudly. “We've had four goddamn cats,” he said, holding up three fingers. Lavonne, who had not failed to notice the way he was tossing back Coronas, began to worry she'd have to offer them a place to spend the night.

“How about some sandwiches?” she said, rising. “Before you head back? Or maybe a pizza?”

Christy stood over by the bookshelves, pretending to recognize some of the titles. “Naw, we got to get going,” she said.

“Sure,” Leonard said. He stared at his ex-wife appreciatively as he sipped his beer. Landon, who had mastered the four-four beat, moved on to a syncopated rhythm. Preston, tiring of the whole thing, leaned over and rapped his brother on top of the head with one of his spoons.

“You know I can puree the boys some vegetables or fruit in the blender if you like,” Lavonne said to Christy. “I can sliver some carrots and celery.”

“Naw,” Christy said. “They won't eat that shit.”

“Well, maybe if they'd learn to eat that
shit they
wouldn't need Ritalin by the time they start preschool,” Leonard said morosely. He couldn't believe the way his life had turned out. When he left her, Lavonne had weighed two hundred ten pounds and had an ass as big as a Yugo. He'd figured she'd spend the rest of her life alone, shut up in some dark, decaying house filled with cats. Now she looked like one of those attractive women on those TV make-over shows, the ones where plastic surgeons and experts turn hopeless middle-aged ugly ducklings into sexy swans. Not only that, but he was pretty sure Lavonne had a six-figure retirement account, not to mention what she was bringing down annually with the Shofar So Good Deli, while he was struggling to make the payments on the beach house, the Hummer, and the new condo Christy had insisted they buy. Not to mention Christy's weekly shopping sprees at the mall and her recent decision that the boys would need to attend one of the most expensive private preschools in Atlanta.

If Leonard could have looked into a crystal ball a year and a half ago and seen what his future held now, he might have made some different decisions. He might have lived his whole life differently.

“I'll make some sandwiches,” Lavonne said.

“You got any more beer?” Leonard said. After a year and a half in Atlanta, he had begun to lose his false, carefully cultivated Southern accent and spoke now in the hard, clipped tones of his Ohio youth. He sat there looking despondently at his sons.

Lavonne said, “I can make up some goody bags for the boys, if you like.”

Christy, fearing Lavonne might try to load the twins up with contraband like apples, carrots, or celery, asked suspiciously, “What kind of goody bags?”

“How about handcuffs and duct tape,” Leonard said.

“I've got some road games the girls used to play with when we traveled,”
Lavonne said. “The boys are pretty young but the games might keep them occupied and quiet.”

“Oh, those boys are
angels
in the car,” Christy said. She had a doting mother's capacity for selective amnesia and had already managed to forget the torturous drive from Florida.

“We'll take the travel games,” Leonard said. “And any Darvon you might have on hand.”

“You can't give Darvon to babies,” Christy shrilled, looking at Leonard like he was stupid.

“You can give it to me,” Leonard said morosely.

Preston dropped his spoons, staggered over to the ficus plant, and began to methodically strip the leaves. Lavonne went into the kitchen and came back out with an old phone book that she set on the floor. “Hey, Preston,” she said, bending over. “Look at this.” She began to tear the pages, one by one into long strips. Preston, entranced, toddled over and squatted down on his haunches. He pushed Lavonne's hands away and began to tear the pages himself.

Leonard watched Lavonne sentimentally. “I'd forgotten how good you were with children,” he said.

Lavonne thought,
I ought to be good with children. I was married to you for twenty-one years
. Christy looked at Leonard the way George Washington might have looked at Benedict Arnold after he surrendered West Point to the British.

Too drunk to sense danger, Leonard continued on. “You look great, Lavonne. How much weight have you lost anyway?”

“Ham sandwiches okay?” Lavonne said. “Or I can make tuna.”

“Tuna gives me gas,” Christy said sullenly.

“Ham it is then,” Lavonne said.

Christy patted one of her ample hips. “I'm still carrying the baby weight,” she said to Lavonne.

“It's been ten months,” Leonard said. “How long you planning on carrying it?”

Christy's sharp little eyes sliced through him like surgical scalpels. “As long as it takes you to regrow some hair,” she said.

“I can pack a cooler,” Lavonne said, “if you'd rather eat on the road.”

“I'll have another beer,” Leonard said to Lavonne, sucking despondently at his Corona. Before they were married, Christy had called him
Sweet Cheeks. Now she called him Hey you.
Hey you, the cat just barfed on the carpet or Hey you, the baby needs a diaper change
.

“Sorry, I'm out of beer,” Lavonne lied. She hoped he hadn't noticed the old Philco out in the shed stocked with Coronas. “Joe's coming over later and maybe he'll bring some with him but you'll be gone by then.”

Leonard set his empty bottle down on his leg. He looked at Lavonne with a dazed expression. “Joe?” he said.

V
IRGINIA INVITED
N
ITA TO GO TO THE BEACH FOR SPRING
break and Nita almost accepted. Redmon had a condo in Destin, the Redneck Riviera, and Virginia was taking Whitney and one of her friends on a “girls' trip.”

“It'll be fun,” Virginia said, clapping her little hands together. “We'll go out to dinner and go shopping and maybe even play some tennis.”

“Well, it does sound like fun,” Nita said. “But I promised Jimmy Lee I'd spend some time with him. Maybe next year.”

She felt a little guilty about turning Virginia down after she had been so nice to Whitney, even though Nita didn't exactly agree with the way Virginia went about showing her love. Virginia's fondness for her granddaughter revealed itself in overtly materialistic ways: shopping trips for Whitney and her friends, new clothes, a decorator hired to redo a spare bedroom in Virginia's house where Whitney slept when she visited. Virginia had even promised Whitney a new car once she turned fifteen, which, of course, Nita had immediately vetoed, incurring the everlasting wrath of Whitney. Virginia, contrite, had apologized repeatedly to Nita over this. “I am so sorry, Nita. I know I should have asked you first before promising the child any
thing so
extravagant
.” She sighed. “It's just that I never had a little girl of my own so of course I have a tendency to want to spoil my only granddaughter rotten. She is
such
a lovely girl.” Nita found it hard to stay angry with Virginia after this confession.

“Maybe Virginia just wears an evil mask to protect her inner child,” Nita said to Loretta one sunny afternoon after Whitney had left for the beach with her grandmother. She'd been reading some of her psychology books again, trying to get a handle on Whitney. “Maybe she's just trying to get over a bad childhood.”

“Virginia's inner child is about as helpless as Attila the Hun,” Loretta said. They were sitting in Nita's small kitchen, peeling potatoes for supper. “Her inner child makes Vlad the Impaler look like Cinderella.”

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