Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (25 page)

Eadie dropped her brush into a jar of turpentine. “Just what every artist wants to hear,” she said. “That she paints like someone else.”

“I meant it as a compliment,” he said.

“Would you take it as a compliment if I told you that you write like Hemingway?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, kissing her again.

Later, they went out to dinner with Lavonne and Joe. Joe and Trevor got along like they'd known each other all their lives. They had the same dry sense of humor and both counted Lewis Nordan as one of their favorite writers.

“
The Sharpshooter Blues
is just about the best novel ever written,” Trevor said. They were at the Pink House Restaurant and had just ordered their fourth carafe of martinis.

“I don't know,” Joe said. “It's pretty hard to beat
Music of the Swamp
.”

“Y'all need to slow down on those martinis,” Eadie said. “That shit'll eat right through your liver.”

“This coming from the Tequila Queen of Ithaca County,” Trevor said, lifting his glass for a refill.

“Bite me, Trevor.”

“I intend to, my dear.”

After the restaurant closed, they took a cab out to the country club and slow-danced to Perry Como and to Nat King Cole singing “Mona Lisa” and “A Blossom Fell.” Eadie had to admit, it was nice having Trevor's arms around her again. When he kissed her neck, she almost forgot about all this foolishness, this separation that she had insisted on. When he sang “When I Fall in Love” in her ear, she knew she could never be happy without him, and it seemed then that her own need for success and independence didn't matter at all. But when the music stopped and she stepped away from him and her mind cleared, she realized her marriage could not continue unless she figured out some way to carve out a separate existence for herself. She could never be happy submerging herself in Trevor's life, painting herself into the background. She just wasn't that kind of woman.

“Take me home,” she said to Trevor.

She had loved Trevor Boone from the moment she first set eyes on him, even though she'd known it wouldn't be easy, even though his mother was dead set against it. Maureen Boone died soon after the wedding, from shame, it was said by some. By others, it was surmised that her heart, atrophied from years of disuse, had simply shriveled into a knot so small and hard it could no longer pump. Whatever the reason, Eadie did not mourn her passing. When Trevor graduated from law school and they returned to Ithaca, they moved into the Boone mansion and Eadie set about getting rid of Maureen's heavy ornate furniture. Instead she filled the rooms with her fertility goddesses, using the dining room as her studio. The plan was for Trevor to practice law for a few years, save as much money as possible, and then give up his law practice to write full-time. But gradually he began to write less and less as the law claimed more and more of his time. Eadie's goddesses, which had started out small, grew monstrous, until they began to fill the entire house like an army of Chinese tomb soldiers. Trevor, frustrated and bored, embarked on his first affair, with a cocktail waitress out at The Thirsty Dog. Eadie, in retaliation, began sleeping with one of the bartenders. Years later, Trevor moved in with his legal secretary, Tonya, and Eadie took up with a personal trainer named Denton Swafford. By this time their twenty-one-year marriage had settled into a predictable pattern of betrayal and reconciliation. But Eadie, tiring of the game, had finally put her foot down. She refused to take him back unless he agreed to stop practicing law and finish his novel, and they both agreed to remain faithful to their wedding vows. No more infidelity.

And Trevor had been true to his word. At least, technically. As had she. Technically.

But now their marriage wasn't about cheating, it was about work, and for the first time Trevor could work and Eadie couldn't. She'd had dry spells before, periods when her creative energies went dormant, but never for eighteen months. And now that she had figured out how to work again, although she didn't know why it had to be in Ithaca, she didn't want anyone or anything to jeopardize that.

“Take me home,” she said again to Trevor.

“Listen, you guys stay at my place,” Lavonne said. “I'll stay at Joe's tonight and for the rest of the time Trevor's in town.”

“He's here only for tonight,” Eadie said. “He's leaving in the morning.”

Lavonne and Joe exchanged looks. Trevor stared at Eadie like he was
trying to figure out who in the hell she was. “You know,” he said coldly, “I don't have to stay at all.”

“Suit yourself,” she said.

A
LL THE WAY TO
J
OE'S HOUSE
, L
AVONNE WAS QUIET
. I
T OCCURRED
to her that she had been the one to jump at the chance to sleep at his place, and he hadn't said much of anything. When he finally did speak, he said, “Wow. They're intense.”

“Who? Eadie and Trevor?” She was relieved that the awkward silence between them had had more to do with the Boones and less to do with Lavonne forcing a sleepover. “They've always been like that. It's a fight to the death, no holds barred. They have an odd marriage and it wouldn't work for everyone, but don't kid yourself. Those two are crazy about each other.”

He grinned and reached for her hand. “Yeah, I got that.” They held hands all the way back to his place.

Joe lived in a brick ranch house close to where Nita had grown up. It was a neighborhood of 1950s and 1960s houses with neat, manicured lawns and large trees. Young couples had begun to move in and fix up the houses and now it was one of the hottest real estate areas in town. Joe had redone his house soon after moving in, taking down walls, refinishing floors, raising the ceiling to the rafters so that it felt like a California beach house, open and uncluttered.

He switched on the lights and went into the kitchen to make them a drink. Lavonne sat down on the overstuffed sofa in the living room and turned on the TV. Jon Stewart was interviewing Harrison Ford on
The Daily Show
.

“This is a rerun,” Joe said, setting two martini glasses down on the coffee table.

“I know.” She leaned over and picked up her drink and then sat back with one foot tucked under her. “I think Jon Stewart's adorable.”

“Really?” He sat down beside her and leaned to pick up his glass. “I find myself oddly jealous over that comment.”

She grinned and sipped her drink.

He tasted his martini and said, “Not bad. Not as good as Eadie's, but not bad.”

“Not bad at all.”

“What's her secret? How does Eadie make her martinis so good?”

“If I told you, I'd have to kill you.”

He kicked his shoes off and stretched his feet out on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle. “You know,” he said, smoothing his shirt over his flat stomach. “There are ways I could make you talk.”

“Really?” She arched one eyebrow and looked at him over the rim of her glass.

“Did I ever tell you I was a wrestler?” He set his drink down and flexed his arm. “Nineteen seventy-five New York State Wrestling Champion, one- hundred-sixty-five-pound weight class.”

“Wow.” She squeezed his bicep lightly with her fingers.

“Want me to show you some of my wrestling moves?”

She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said.

“It's pretty entertaining stuff.”

She sipped her drink and thought, So
this is what love feels like. Like falling down a flight of stairs or jumping from a tall bridge
. She said, “I didn't have time to pack a bag. Do you have some jammies I can borrow?”

He took her glass from her and set it down on the table. “You won't need jammies,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her. His eyes, so close to hers, were a brilliant green. A small jagged scar stretched beneath his lower lip. “Are you sure you're ready for this?” he said.

She smiled and ran her finger along the scar. “I've been ready,” she said, and kissed him back.

T
REVOR AND
E
ADIE WENT BACK TO
L
AVONNE'S PLACE AND ARGUED
for nearly an hour. Then they went to bed. In the morning, Eadie woke up to find him gone. There was a note pinned to Trevor's pillow, along with a sprig of forsythia that he had obviously pulled from Lavonne's front yard. The note read, “Dear Eadie—I love you. I'm sorry you're unhappy and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to see you through this, even if it means sleeping alone and not seeing you for weeks at a time. I'll call you tonight. I'm going to London the end of the month and I hope you'll go with me. Love, Trevor.” Underneath this, was a hastily scrawled note. “P.S. Don't sleep with anyone else.”

Eadie grinned and yawned, and rolled over in bed. She had to admit, even after twenty-two years the sex was still good. She knew there were
more than a few women who might look at her and think she was crazy for sending Trevor away.

But then Eadie had never cared much for what other people thought of her.

W
HEN
L
AVONNE GOT HOME LATE THAT AFTERNOON
, E
ADIE WAS
sitting out on the deck smoking a cigarette.

“I hope you're not picking up bad habits staying with me,” Lavonne said, sitting down at the table. She had just climbed out of the shower and her hair was wet. Joe had dropped her off, but he didn't stay. It was Saturday and he was leaving on Sunday morning for a business trip to Boston. “In case you don't know this, cigarettes kill.”

Eadie put her head back and blew smoke rings into the blue sky. “One bad habit at a time,” she said. “I gave up Mondo Logs but don't ask me to give up cigarettes yet.”

A lawn mower hummed in the distance. The air was fragrant with the scent of honeysuckle and barbecue. Lavonne slumped in her chair, tired but happy.

“So?” Eadie said. “How was it?”

Lavonne grinned and shook her head. “I can't even begin to tell you,” she said. “I had no idea what I was missing.”

Eadie pursed her lips and blew smoke over her shoulder. “Better late than never,” she said.

In the alley behind the house, a group of children played tag. The evening sun dipped slowly behind a line of ragged purple clouds. “We're out of vodka,” Eadie said. “All you've got is beer.” She stubbed her cigarette out in one of the potted plants. “What's with all the Coronas in the refrigerator?” she said, nodding with her head toward the garage. I never took you for a beer lover.”

“Eadie, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. The only way I could be any more of a beer lover is if I'd grown up in Cincinnati.”

Bats flitted in the darkening sky, swooping above the trees. Lavonne went inside to get a box of matches and came back out with two glasses of sweet tea. She bent to light the citronella candles. Eadie sipped her tea and thought about Trevor.

“You're kind of quiet tonight,” Lavonne said. Eadie's face, in the candlelight, was lovely.

“I'm tired, is all.”

“Didn't get much sleep last night?”

“Nope. Did you?”

“Nope.” They grinned at each other. “I guess we do all right for a couple of old broads,” Lavonne said.

“Old broads?” Eadie said. “Speak for yourself.”

The soft evening closed around them. Tree frogs chanted in the shadows of the boxwood hedge. A few faint stars sprinkled the night sky. “You know, it's funny,” Eadie said. “But I keep dreaming about my mother. It's the same dream, and she's trying to tell me something, but when I wake up I can't remember.”

“Recurrent dreams are important,” Lavonne said.

“She's been dead twenty years but she visits me constantly in my dreams. And the funny thing is,” Eadie put her glass down on the table and turned toward Lavonne. “The funny thing is, she's become some kind of wise woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you never knew my mother. She was a pretty simple person. I never gained much knowledge from her other than what I learned from watching her fuck up and deciding I wouldn't do the same.” Eadie grinned. “Don't look so shocked, Lavonne. It's okay to speak ill of the dead. She doesn't mind. She knows I loved her. Always.” Eadie sipped her tea carefully and then set the glass down again. “But somewhere on the other side, she's picked up some kind of knowledge. She's trying to tell me something, and in the dream I realize what she's saying is important, but when I wake up I can't remember.”

“Maybe you don't want to remember,” Lavonne said. “Maybe it's something painful that you're not ready to face yet.”

“Hey,” Eadie said suddenly, putting her feet down. “I'm hungry. Are you hungry?”

“I guess. But I don't feel like cooking.”

“Me neither. Let's go out to eat.” Lights came on in the house next door. Moths as big as butterflies fluttered against the window screens. “Let's get dressed up and you can take me out and show me what this town has to offer in the way of entertainment now that it's gone all grand and upscale.”

————

T
HE RESTAURANT WAS PACKED.
I
T WAS A NEW PLACE OUT ON THE
river and was called, of all things, The Grotto. It was run by a chef out of New York who had tired of the rat race of Manhattan and moved south a little over a year ago. The menu was primarily seafood and southern Italian cuisine.

“Damn,” Eadie said, looking around. They'd had to wait at the bar for a table, and were working on their second shaker of peach martinis. The hostess called their name and then led them to a small booth near the kitchen. “I don't know a soul in this place,” Eadie said, looking around as she slid into the booth. “Who are all these people?”

“The Sunbelt is growing,” Lavonne said. “Everyone's moving south.”

They ordered and then sat looking around the crowded restaurant. Candles flickered on tables and in sconces set into the thick stucco walls. One wall had been painted with a mural showing an outdoor market scene in Trapani or Palermo, the Tyrrhenian Sea sparkling in the background. Two young couples with a fussy toddler arrived and were seated at the table next to them. Soon after being strapped into his high chair, the child set up a relentless, high-pitched wail that the couples seemed oblivious to.

“Oh great,” Eadie said. “We go out for a nice quiet dinner and we've got to sit next to a screamer.” She looked around the crowded restaurant but couldn't see any empty tables where they could move.