Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (47 page)

“He's your father,” Nita said, “don't call him Charles. If he didn't care about you, you wouldn't fight all the time. He wouldn't react no matter what you did. Indifference is much more terrible than conflict.”

“So you're saying, because we fight, it means we love each other?”

“Yes.”

“That's fucked up,” Logan said, shaking his head.

“Hey,” Jimmy Lee said.

Nita said, “You're a smart boy. He's a smart man. You two just need to figure out some way to communicate your feelings without letting all that resentment and rage get in the way.”

“In the meantime, you've got me,” Jimmy Lee said.

Logan grinned and they slapped palms. “Cool,” he said, rising. “Hey, me and the boys are playing in that Battle of the Bands they're having next weekend over in Statesboro. Grandpa Redmon called a couple of people he knows and got us on the bill. Are you coming?”

Jimmy Lee said, “Is a pig's butt pork? Of course I'm coming.”

Nita said, “You have to figure out some way of forgiving Daddy and Grandmother. Both of you. It's important.” She had given up reading how- to-be-a-good-parent books and was just winging it now.

“Oh, I forgive them,” Whitney said airily. “Daddy is sweet as can be. He really is. And Grandmother, well, Grandmother is just Grandmother. Living with her was not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. She's so damn picky. It's always, ‘Sit up straight,’ or ‘Don't talk with food in your mouth,’ or ‘Don't put your elbows on the table, my goodness what will people think.’”

“You know who I feel sorry for?” Logan said. “Grandpa Redmon. What's he gonna do now that me and the boys aren't there to protect him?”

“Old Virginia rides him pretty hard, does she?” Jimmy Lee grinned and winked at Nita.

“He enjoys every minute of it,” Nita said, grinning back.

“He's like a whipped dog,” Logan said. “‘Yes, honey,’ this and ‘no, honey,’ that. Like a lovesick teenager, always following her around and slapping her on the butt every chance he gets.”

“Ew, don't remind me,” Whitney said. “It's disgusting. They're both so
old
.” She shuddered at the disturbing notion of people over forty having a sex life.

Nita smiled gently at Jimmy Lee. “Y'all go ahead and stack the dishes in the dishwasher,” she said. “And then get your homework done.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Whitney said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Logan said.

When the kids had finished cleaning up the kitchen and gone into their bedrooms to do their homework, Nita and Jimmy Lee sat at the kitchen table in a companionable silence. “This is nice,” Jimmy Lee said, taking her hand.

“Yes, it is.”

“It's funny, what Whitney said about living a simple life and all that. She's right.”

“Out of the mouths of babes.”

“How long do you think her change in attitude will last?”

“Maybe two weeks.”

He laughed. “This is all that matters, right here.” He looked around the kitchen and back at his wife. “Everything I care about is right here in this little house.” Otis raised his head and thumped his tail on the floor. Jimmy Lee played with Nita's fingers, gently pulling each fingertip. “I want it the way it was before. I want to appreciate it this time.”

“We can't go back. We can only go forward.”

“That's true,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her, soft and slow, and she could feel everything there was between them in that kiss—all the love, regret, and above all, hope. When he pulled away, he kept his face close to hers. His breath was sweet. His eyes were round and dark as river stones.

“I want to come home,” he said.

Nita leaned and kissed him back. “What are you waiting for?” she said.

T
HREE WEEKS BEFORE
C
HRISTMAS THE AX FINALLY FELL AND
Joe Solomon lost his job. He had been dreading it for so long that when word finally came, it was almost a relief. He showed up on Lavonne's front porch carrying a bouquet of pink roses and a bottle of champagne. When
she opened the door, he just stood there grinning. “I got fired,” he said finally.

“Well try not to look so depressed,” Lavonne said, opening the screen.

She'd been making pad thai for supper and he kissed her and followed her into the kitchen. He put the roses in a vase of water and rummaged around in the cabinet for a couple of champagne flutes. “Where's Eadie?” he said, over his shoulder.

“She's out at the art supply store.”

She stood at the stove and he leaned over her shoulder and looked down at the smoking wok. “That smells good,” he said. He kissed her again and she said, “Why don't you set the table and we'll celebrate the demise of your sorry-assed corporate job.”

She was surprised to find him in such a cheerful mood. Most men she knew who lost their jobs in middle age lapsed into bitterness and despair, but Joe had the cheerful demeanor of a reprieved death-row felon. He was whistling as he set the table and he looked like he had lost about fifteen years of age and worry.

“So what's next?” she asked, halfway through the meal. The thought that he might have to look for a job elsewhere hovered always at the edge of her consciousness like a bad dream.

“I think you know the answer to that,” he said, pouring them both another glass of champagne.

She said, “Atlanta? Detroit? Chicago?”

He frowned. “Oh come on,” he said.

“The Big Apple?”

“I was thinking more like Provence. Saint-Tropez or maybe Marseilles.”

Lavonne put her fork down. “Were you serious?” she asked. “You mean all that talk of biking through the south of France was for
real?
”

He looked hurt. “Of course it was for real,” he said. “Why do you think I've been working my ass off for the last twenty-five years? Why do you think I've been saving every penny I could for the last fifteen?”

“But do you have enough?”

“Sure. If I economize. I got a good severance package from DuPont and Katie's education is already paid for. I set up a trust fund years ago. I need some time away from the corporate rat race to work out a business plan for my bike shop. And Provence seems like the perfect place to do it.” He laughed and pinched her cheek. “I mean, we won't exactly be living a life of luxury but we'll get by.”

Lavonne said, “We?” She said, “Provence?”

He pushed himself away from the table and got down on one knee. She shook her head but he just laughed and took her hands. “Come on, girl, run away with me to the south of France.”

“Get up off the floor before you hurt yourself.”

“Let's live the Bohemian life, if only for six months.”

“I'm not getting married again anytime soon.”

“Who said anything about marriage?”

“But what about my business?”

“What about it? Hire somebody. Hell, I've seen your balance sheet. I've seen your profit and loss. You can afford to hire a manager, or even a whole management team. Both you and Mona deserve some time off.”

She smiled in spite of herself and shook her head. “You'll throw your back out if you don't get up.”

“Come on, Lavonne,” he teased. “What are you afraid of? You always said you wanted to travel. You always said you wanted to write a book for women looking to protect themselves financially from bad husbands.”

“If I promise to think about it, will you get up off the floor? You're not a damn twenty-year-old, you know.”

He grinned and pulled her toward him. “Then why do I feel like one?” he said.

S
INCE THE CATHARTIC PRE
-T
HANKSGIVING THROW-DOWN
, E
ADIE
had pretty much worked nonstop painting a series of large female nudes for the gallery up in Atlanta. She had given up on abstract expressionism and had returned to her first love, classical realism. Her females now looked less like geometric body parts held together by paint and more like Botticelli angels. She rose early every morning and went out to Lavonne's little shed to work, sometimes painting steadily for five or six hours before taking a break. Now that Nita had her family back, now that Lavonne was happy in love, now that Eadie had banished whatever demons haunted her from her childhood and gone back to work, her job here was nearly done. She wanted to go home to New Orleans. She wanted to spend Christmas with her husband.

Later that afternoon, he called. He had cut short his tour of the Midwest and was home waiting for her. He had taken to calling her daily, as if the ha
rassment alone might be enough to make her jump on a plane and head back to the Big Easy.

“I'm making Cosmopolitans just the way you like them,” he said, when she picked up the phone. “On the veranda. It's a beautiful day. The sun is slanting through the ironwork making lacy patterns on the old bricks. The banana plants are swaying in the breeze. It smells like New Orleans.”

“Like mud flats and jasmine? Like garbage and gardenias?”

“That's right.”

“Goddamn, I miss it.”

“So come home.”

“I can't just leave in the middle,” Eadie said. “I've got to finish what I started.”

Trevor sighed. Eadie wiped her hands on a rag and went outside into the yard. It was sunny here, too, and the air was cool and dry. Not like New Orleans, though. Not soft and balmy and sweet with decay.

“I thought you had finished helping Nita. I thought your job there was done.”

“It is,” she said. “Almost. I have to finish what I'm working on and get the canvases up to that gallery in Atlanta.”

“I talked to Grace yesterday. I invited her to come up and spend some time with us in New Orleans. I told her I had a lock of my father's hair that I'd be happy to have DNA tested if she so desired.”

“You're a good brother.”

“I'm a good husband, too.” When she didn't say anything, he chuckled and said, “So, I've been looking at some of the pictures I took with my digital camera last Christmas.”

“How'd they come out?”

“Odd.”

“What do you mean odd?”

“There's one of you in the bedroom. You're sitting on the edge of the bed. It looks like you've been napping and you've just woken up.”

“Oh shit. Destroy that one.”

“And here's the odd thing,” Trevor said. “There's this light just beyond your right shoulder.”

“Maybe it's a reflection off the window.”

“I thought of that. It shows up on several of the shots and then gets darker. But when I checked the shots immediately before and immediately
after, it's gone. It's like it appears on one frame, gets larger, gets darker, and then disappears.”

“What does it look like?”

“A head. The shadow of a head.”

“A small head, right?”

“Yes. A small head. And small shoulders. And a small body.”

“Like a child?”

“Yes.”

“I told you I wasn't crazy,” Eadie said. There was a drumming sound in her head, slow and steady as a heartbeat.

“The thing is, now I'm kind of spooked. I'm kind of scared staying in this big house all by myself.”

“Now you know how I felt.”

He chuckled and said, “Promise me you'll be home for Christmas.”

“I can't make any promises about the future. I'm living one day at a time.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“No it doesn't.”

“But you're coming home?”

“Yes.”

“I need you here. All I have for company is a group of fawning flatterers.”

She laughed. “You must be in heaven then.”

“I'm lonely in this big old house all by myself.”

“You're not by yourself. There's a ghost.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“I'll send you a Ouija board so you'll have someone to talk to.”

He was laughing when she hung up. Smiling, she went back to work.

T
WO WEEKS BEFORE
C
HRISTMAS AND SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE
Eadie was scheduled to return to New Orleans, Lavonne had a going-away party. It was a small affair, just Lavonne, Nita, Grace, and Eadie. They sat out on the deck under a leaden sky, watching the neighbor's colored Christmas lights twinkle merrily. It had rained all day, a slow, steady drizzle that stopped just as evening fell.

“Three days from now I'll be home,” Eadie said, looking around the table. Clouds of fog rolled in under the lights. “What are y'all gonna do for fun once I'm gone?”

“Give my liver a vacation,” Lavonne said.

“Count the days until you come back,” Nita said.

“Plan a trip to the Big Easy,” Grace said.

“Y'all should do that. Come up and see me in New Orleans. We could get into all kinds of trouble and I know the police commissioner so it's nothing that would show up on our permanent records.”

Lavonne chuckled and shook her head. “Speaking of trouble, do you want me to mix up a shaker of Cosmopolitans?” Nita and Grace shook their heads.

“No, thanks,” Eadie said. “I think I'll lay off the hard stuff for a while. I feel a health binge coming on.”

“Sweet tea it is, then.” Lavonne went into the kitchen. She came out a few minutes later carrying a pitcher of tea and a tray of baked brie and crackers.

“Did Trevor call me on the house phone?” Eadie said to Lavonne. “I've been trying to reach him all day.”

“No. I checked messages when I came in from work.”

Nita said, “How long's it been since you saw him?”

“Three and a half weeks. That's the longest we've ever been apart, except for the two trial separations.” Eadie poured herself a glass of tea and then sat back in her chair. “He thinks I'm coming in next week. He doesn't know I'm coming home early. I thought I'd surprise him.”

“Better warn the neighbors,” Lavonne said.

“Very funny.”

“Are you blushing?” Nita said, giggling. “I don't think I've ever seen you blush, Eadie.”

“Speaking of blushing, how's that recommitting to virginity thing working out for you and Jimmy Lee?”

Nita took a long, slow sip of tea and then set her glass down on the table. “It was a pretty stupid idea anyway,” she said.

“Yeah, that's what we thought.”

Grace cut a thick wedge of brie and spread it on top of a cracker. “So what's the deal with Charles?” she said to Nita. “I hear he's leaving town.”

“He's moving to Atlanta. He was offered a job working for Coca-Cola back when Boone and Broadwell folded, and now he's decided to take it.”