Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (39 page)

“Aren't you meeting Trevor this weekend?” Lavonne asked.

“In Chicago. We've got a suite booked at the Ritz Carlton.”

“Do you guys come up for air or is it pretty much a three-day romp?”

“It's pretty much a three-day romp.” Eadie didn't tell her how the last time, in L.A., they'd gotten into a huge fight. Trevor had yelled, “I can't live like this anymore!” and Eadie had gotten up and left in the middle of the night. She didn't tell how they hadn't spoken to each other for six days.

In the backseat, Nita snored softly. They topped a rise and came down into a long flat valley rimmed with mountains. Mary Chapin sang about passionate kisses.

“Just think,” Eadie said, grinning. “You and Joe will have the house all to yourselves. You can play Hide the Lizard to your heart's content.”

Lavonne focused her attention on a point on the distant horizon and tried not to blush. “Very funny,” she said.

Eadie picked up a magazine and began to flip through it. “I really like him. Joe, I mean.”

“Thanks. I like him, too.”

Eadie fanned the magazine and dropped it in her lap. She yawned and then pulled the courtesy mirror down to check her reflection. “Is it serious?” she said to Lavonne, rubbing her finger over her front teeth to take off a lipstick stain. “You and Joe, I mean?”

Lavonne glanced at her blind spot and pulled into the passing lane. “We're not getting married anytime soon, if that's what you're asking.” They passed an old barn with a “See Rock City” sign painted on the roof. A black- and-white cow stood in a pasture, watching the cars like a suicide waiting to jump. Lavonne wasn't even sure why she'd mentioned marriage, but now that she had, she felt a little embarrassed. Getting married to someone just because you were having sex with him wasn't always the answer. And it had taken her only twenty-one years of marriage to Leonard to learn this little tip. “How about you and Trevor? Is he still being patient?”

Eadie closed the courtesy mirror. She pulled one foot up under her with her knee stuck out at a right angle. She thought,
For all I know, my marriage might be over
. She said, “What choice does he have?”

“But don't you miss him? Don't you miss the physical closeness of seeing him every day?”

“You mean the sex? Don't I miss the sex?” Eadie glanced at her and grinned. “That's what the Love Monkey's for.”

Nita's eyes fluttered open. She sat up, wiping the drool off her chin. “What's a Love Monkey?” she said.

Eadie tossed the magazine into the backseat. “Nothing a Recommitted Virgin needs to know about,” she said.

L
ORENA
P
OTTER LIVED IN
E
AST
R
IDGE
, T
ENNESSEE, A BLUE
collar suburb just north of the Georgia state line. Nita called her to let her
know they were on their way and to make sure they had the right directions to her house.

“I'm bringing two of my colleagues with me,” Nita said.

“I'll get the coffee going,” Lorena said.

She was a small spry woman in her late seventies. She greeted them at the front door of her tiny ranch house and led them back to the den, where she served them coffee and cookies on a silver tray. The house was like a sauna, but Lorena wore a sweater and rubbed her hands together to warm them. “Are y'all cold?” she asked.

“No,” they answered simultaneously.

At the sliding glass door, Lorena's enraged terrier, Benjie, barked like a rusty weathervane spinning in the wind. “Don't mind him,” Lorena said fondly. “He's really sweet. His bark is worse than his bite, if you know what I mean.” On the other side of the glass, Benjie lifted his top lip and showed his teeth.

“Where's a good place to eat in Chattanooga?” Eadie asked, wondering if there was some other way Benjie might get into the house, wondering if there was a doggie door hidden somewhere in the kitchen Lorena might have forgotten to latch.

“Oh, any of those new restaurants down by the aquarium are good,” Lorena said, stirring cream into her coffee. “They're expensive, but they're good. Chattanooga's come a long way since I was girl. It used to be just a railroad crossroads but now there's shopping malls and restaurants and the new aquarium and all those parks down by the river.”

Nita was taking a folder out of her briefcase while Lorena talked. “It's grown a lot since the 1950s then?” she said.

“Oh, honey, yes. You wouldn't hardly recognize it now. It was just a sleepy little place back then.”

Benjie scratched frantically at the glass door. Nita took a tape recorder, a notebook, and a pen out of her briefcase. “As you know, Mrs. Potter, I'm writing an article on unwed girls who got pregnant in the 1950s and had to give their babies up for adoption. We've agreed that anything you tell me today is confidential and you won't be named as a source in the article.”

“That is correct,” Lorena said formally, like she was being sworn in with her hand on the Bible.

They talked a while about the Brainerd Home for Unwed Mothers, how Lorena had started there as a young woman just out of nursing school and
worked for a number of years until the place closed down in the early 1960s. “It was the birth control pill that did it,” Lorena said, shaking her head. “Girls didn't get pregnant after that. At least not as many as used to.”

Nita took out the photograph of Virginia and Charles as a baby and handed it to Lorena. “Mrs. Potter do you recognize this woman?”

On the other side of the glass, Benjie made a sound like a chipmunk trapped under a box. The elderly woman squinted her eyes and peered at the photograph. “I don't know,” she said. “Maybe.” She handed the photo back to Nita. “It was a long time ago. I probably nursed over a thousand girls in my time that came through the home for unwed mothers.”

Lavonne glanced at Eadie. Lorena said, “Do y'all want some more coffee?”

“No, thank you, we're fine.” Nita took out the photograph she had downloaded off the Internet and handed it to Lorena. “Mrs. Potter do you recognize this girl?” she asked.

“Which one?” Lorena took the photograph and stared down at the table of solemn girls. Nita pointed with her finger and Lorena brightened and said, “Oh, yes, Jennie.”

“Jennie?” Nita said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. She glanced at Eadie who raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Lavonne carefully studied Lorena's face.

“I'd never forget Jennie,” Lorena said, rising. “She was a pistol.” She left the room and came back in a few minutes carrying an old scrapbook. “She was what we used to call a ‘white gloves girl,’” she said, sitting back down beside Nita on the sofa. “You know, the kind that seemed like she came from a good family. She kept to herself but she had real nice manners and talked like she might have come from some money. We didn't get many like Jennie, most of our girls were cotton mill hands or daughters of cotton mill hands, but every so often one would show up at the door.” She laughed. “I guess even rich girls get tempted.”

Lavonne leaned forward. “Where was Jennie from, Mrs. Potter?”

“Somewhere down in south Georgia. I know that because the family that took Jennie's baby was from down there, too. Of course, Jennie didn't know that. We never told any of the girls who got their babies back then. We just let them hold them once and then they were taken away and given to their new families.”

No one said anything. Eadie leaned forward and picked up the photo of
Virginia and Charles and the photo of the young women gathered around the table. “Mrs. Potter, do you think this might be Jennie?” Her movements seemed to set the dog off again.

“Benjie, hush,” Lorena said. She compared the two photos and shook her head. “There is a resemblance,” she said doubtfully.

“What family?” Lavonne said, and they all turned and looked at her. “What family from south Georgia took Jennie's baby?”

Lorena gave the photos back to Eadie and opened her scrapbook. “We didn't keep the mothers' full names but I kept the names of the people who took the babies. Unofficially, of course.” She took out a piece of fragile typing paper and ran her finger down a long list of names. “Grantham,” she said, finally. “Vienna, Georgia.”

Nita leaned over her shoulder and stared at the opened scrapbook. She picked up a photograph and said, “Is this Jennie?”

Benjie was throwing himself at the glass now, his little claws clicking like castanets. “Yes,” Lorena said. “I took that right after she got to the home. She was such a pretty little thing and had the nicest clothes. Always dressed like a movie star even up to the time right before she delivered.”

Nita stared at the photograph. Her chin trembled. Slowly she passed it to Lavonne.

Lavonne said, “Oh my God.”

Eadie said, “Oh shit.”

Nita said, “Do you mind if I keep this photograph, Mrs. Potter?”

O
N THE RIDE INTO
C
HATTANOOGA
, N
ITA CALLED HER MOTHER
Lavonne was driving and Eadie was sitting in the front passenger seat, beating her hands on the dashboard and singing along to Mary Chapin Carpenter.

“Hey, Mama, it's me.” Nita was shaking so badly she could hardly talk.

“Nita? Where are you?”

“I'm up in Chattanooga with Lavonne and Eadie.”

“What in the hell are you doing up there?”

“It's a long story. I'll tell you when I get home.”

“Y'all didn't go up there to hire a hit man did you?” Loretta said.

“Listen, do you know a family named Grantham?”

“ 'Cause I told you I'd do it for free.”

“From Vienna, Georgia. Do you know the Granthams?”

“Of course I do. I went to school with Pinky Grantham and Vera, too. She was a Ledford before she married Pinky and her mother was a Ham- bright from over by—”

“And they had a daughter? The Granthams, I mean.”

“Say, what's this all about? Does this have something to do with getting Whitney back?”

“Mama, just answer my questions! I'll tell you all about it when I get home.”

“Sure,” Loretta said. “Pinky and Vera had a daughter. An only child they adopted after Vera kept having miscarriages. They never had any other kids, which is a shame because they were both from big farming families and they are the nicest people you could ever meet.”

“Do you know her?”

“Who?”

“Goddamn it, Mama. The daughter. Do you know the Grantham daughter?”

“Juanita Sue, you watch your language. Of course I know the Grantham daughter and you do too. Pearson.”

Nita said stupidly, “Pearson?”

“That's her married name. You know who I'm talking about, I must be getting the Alzheimer's, I can't believe I've forgotten her first name. The newspaper woman. That was at your wedding.”

Nita said, “
Grace?
”

“That's it,” Loretta said. “Grace. Grace Pearson.”

“T
HE WHOLE TOWN'S A GODDAMN
D
ICKENS NOVEL
,” E
ADIE SAID
later that night, on the ride home. The moon hung over the expressway like a golden Ferris wheel. The lights of faraway farmhouses twinkled in the darkness. “I mean, think about it. Virginia gets pregnant with Hampton Boone's child, goes up to Chattanooga to deliver it, and the baby gets adopted and winds up growing up fifteen miles from where Virginia lives now. Grace is Trevor's half-sister. She's Nita's ex-half-sister-in-law. She's my half-sister-in-law. I mean, goddamn. Trevor's wasting his time writing all those legal thrillers. He should be writing about his dysfunctional family and their sad heritage in this crossbred little backwoods place that is Ithaca, Georgia.”

Nita was still in shock. Not about Virginia having an out-of-wedlock
baby, but the fact that the baby was Grace Pearson. “Do you think Grace knows? I mean, she must know she's adopted, if my mother knows, everybody knows, but do you think she knows about Virginia?”

“No way,” Eadie said. “Have you seen the way those two look at each other? The last time they ran into each other, I thought we were fixing to have a catfight right there in the middle of Nita's wedding reception.”

Nita laughed quietly. “I can't wait to see Virginia's face when she finds out the woman who wrote all those articles exposing Judge Broadwell is her daughter. Her own flesh and blood. I can't wait to see her face when she realizes her own long-lost daughter is this year's Kudzu Queen.”

Lavonne was quiet, studying the road in the headlights. She was sitting in the passenger seat beside Nita. “Who do you think it'll upset more, Grace or Virginia?”

“I'll tell you who it
won't
upset,” Eadie said, “and that's Trevor Boone. He's always loved Grace.”

Nita gripped the steering wheel. She shook her head slowly. “We can't tell Trevor unless we tell Grace.” She looked at Lavonne. “Can we?”

Eadie said, “Look, y'all, I like Grace too much to tell her that Virginia's her birth mother.”

“That's the kind of news that might make someone suicidal,” Lavonne said.

Eadie said, “Let's don't tell Grace. If Virginia wants to tell her, fine. If Trevor wants to tell her, fine. But I don't want to be the one to ruin Grace's life by telling her that her birth mother is actually Virginia Redmon.”

Lavonne watched the moon through the trees. Van Morrison sang softly on the radio. “Now that that's settled, how are we going to tell Virginia?”

“I've been thinking about that,” Nita said. “Charles told me his mother is having a big pre-Thanksgiving dinner party and, get this,
Gracious Southern Living
is coming to televise the whole affair for their ‘Holidays in the South’ program.”

“Oh my God,” Eadie said. “Virginia must be in heaven.”

Lavonne stopped looking at the moon. She turned slightly with her back to the door. “But how does that help us?” she said.

Nita's face was lit by the dim light from the dashboard. “I'm thinking that would be a perfect time to spring the news about Virginia's past. I'm thinking that might be the perfect time to bargain for my child's release. If we threaten to go public, she's sure to drop the custody suit. Especially in front of all those TV cameras.”

“What are you suggesting?” Eadie said, warming to the idea. “That we crash the party?”