“I don’t know. Seems like life has a way of getting in front of what’s really important.” He flexed his hands on the wheel, then continued. “I’ve been thinking a lot since I got the call that Daddy was sick. Here we lived just a few hours from home, and Elizabeth and I barely made it down to see the folks.”
“Don’t feel bad, Preston. We live in the jet age; I could be here in a matter of hours myself, if you think about it. And I come home once a year. We have families, and Mama and Daddy always understood that.”
“I should have called more often.”
I felt tears sting the back of my eyes. “If we’d known we only had a little more time, we’d have called every day, several times a day. Both of us would have. You know that.”
“Years ago, after I’d moved up to Atlanta, it was all about work, getting settled in my career. Then, I met Elizabeth and we got married. Suddenly life was about building a home and a family with her rather than staying so much connected to the family I’d grown up with.”
“C’est la vie,”
I said. “Of such things is life, brother.”
He cleared his throat before going on. “I asked to be the one to drive you to the airport because I thought it was time we really talked again, Goldie. Like you said, we used to be so close.”
I smiled at him. “Oh, sure,” I said with a lilt in my voice. “Never has a brother so mercilessly picked on a little sister.”
He chuckled. “It made you tough.”
I grew pensive. “And tough is what I’d need to be to get through this life.”
He looked at me momentarily. “How’s Olivia? Mama says she’s expecting.”
I nodded. “Baby number two. What about Shauna? Anyone special in her life?”
I watched Preston turn pale, then flush red. “Shauna has someone special, Goldie. In fact, she’s married to him.”
“What? Preston! Why haven’t you told anyone?”
Preston swallowed. “He’s a man of color; or at least that’s the way Elizabeth puts it . . . when she can bring herself to discuss it.”
I took in a breath, my fingers lightly touching my chest. “He’s black?”
“That’s why Shauna didn’t come to the funeral. In Canada it’s not so big a deal, but here in the South . . .”
“It’s not something Dixie is altogether ready to deal with,” I said.
Preston chuckled. “Noooo . . .”
“Is he nice?”
“Very.”
“Does Shauna love him?”
Preston reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a photo. “You tell me. I’ve been holding on to this . . . in case I . . . we . . . talked.”
I took the photo from him and then stared at the image of my beautiful niece and a handsome black man. They both bore wide smiles, and I noted the way his dark hand was gently draped over a pale one, his fingertips lightly touching hers. It was a loving caress, evident even on photo paper.
“He obviously makes her happy.”
“Like no one I’ve ever seen.”
“Personally I’d rather have Olivia happy with a black man than miserable with a white man.” I swallowed. “Believe me.”
He looked over at me again, then back to the road. “What are you saying, little sister?”
I shrugged. Jack had changed. There was no need to open this can of worms.
“Jack?” Preston finally asked. “Something with Jack?”
I looked at my brother, his face growing hot in the cold of winter. “Preston, the nightmares of my marriage are all over now. We’ve worked through some issues and . . . you’ve always liked Jack. I don’t want to say anything that might make you not like him.”
Preston exhaled loud enough for me to hear him. “Why do we do this, Goldie? Why do we keep secrets from the people who love us and who we love?”
“I don’t know.” My voice was barely audible.
He reached over and took my hand, squeezing lightly. “Remember when we were kids? There was that bully—what was his name?”
“Biff Davis.”
How could he forget?
Preston laughed at my quick answer. “He used to pick on you all the time when you were, what? Third grade?”
“And fourth.”
“Then you came home and told me.”
“He made fun of my hair,” I said with a pretend pout and a touch of my red locks.
“So the next day, I held him down while you poured red paint all over his head.” Preston laughed heartily, and I joined him.
“Daddy was so mad at us. We could hardly sit down for a week.”
Preston shook his head. “Not without a pillow.” Then he laughed again. “Look, Goldie, let’s not do this anymore, okay? Let’s stay in touch. Let’s share our hurts and our fears and our . . . secrets. The way I see it, it’s a simple matter of trust.”
Trust.
Indeed.
I leaned over as best as my seat belt would allow and kissed his cheek. “Agreed.”
We rode in silence for a while longer until he said, “You and Jack okay now?”
“We’re better than okay. We’re in counseling. I actually moved out of the house last year and got my own place for a few months, then moved back.”
Preston shook his head again. “You should have told me. It makes me sick to think that you lived somewhere else for months and I didn’t even know it.”
“So then, what about you? How long are you going to keep your secret a secret?”
“Give it some time, Goldie. You’re living proof that we share our secrets when we’re ready and not a minute before.”
I thought about that for a moment, and about the truthfulness behind it. I thought about how long I’d kept my secret, how Diane was holding her fears secret, how Mama had worn aprons all these years because Daddy thought it was sexy, and how even a good secret is a secret nonetheless. I looked out at the flat farmlands stretching before me and thought about my mountain home in Summit View. I thought about Donna and Vonnie and Evie, about how each of them had kept secrets over the years that had kept them emotionally imprisoned for so long. Then I thought about Lizzie and Lisa Leann, the only ones of our little group who didn’t seem to have secrets at all.
But surely they do, I thought. Because all God’s children have secrets.
An entire week had gone by since I’d made my resolution to stop drinking on the DL, a phrase a couple of the kids at school had recently introduced me to.
“The DL, Mrs. Prattle,” Jennifer Brown said to me while in the media center one chilly afternoon. “You know, R. Kelly’s song? ‘The Down Low’? Nobody has to know?”
Jennifer’s best friend (at least as far as I could tell), Patrick Noone, chimed in. “Mrs. Prattle probably doesn’t listen to R. Kelly, Jen.”
I admit it. I’d never even heard of R. Kelly.
“He’s a singer, Mrs. Prattle,” Jennifer said with a giggle. “You know, ‘Bump and Grind’?”
I frowned in response.
Patrick, an adorable young man if I’ve ever seen one, shook his head. “No, no, no. She’s not going to know that one.” Then he shot a dimpled grin my way. “But I’d be willing to bet you know ‘I Believe I Can Fly.’ Right?”
I nodded. “Now, that song I know.” I’d heard it recently in a bar,
in fact, but I wouldn’t go there with my students.
“Totally,” Jennifer said. “So, he has this song called ‘The Down Low.’ It means, on the sly. Hidden.”
“Secret,” Patrick added.
“Secret?”
“Hey, look at her,” Patrick said to Jennifer. “She’s blushing.”
Jennifer’s eyes twinkled as she said, “Maybe Mrs. Prattle has
something she’s keeping on the DL.”
I frowned again. “Maybe it’s the grades you’re going to get in
library science,” I said.
“Oops,” Patrick said with a wink. “And I’d appreciate it, Mrs. Prattle, if they stayed on the DL.”
So, I’d kept my drinking on the DL, and now it was done. Good. A week without a drink had left me a little shaken at times and craving the taste of a glass of red wine at others, but I’d managed just fine. Even last night, a Friday with enough noise in the house to bring a small earthquake to envy, I’d stayed home, read in the semi-quiet of my bedroom, and managed to get to sleep by a decent hour without the aid of alcohol. My short-lived indiscretion
was safely over.
On Saturday I woke early, feeling refreshed. I had a long list of things on my to-do list, including a Potluck meeting and tea with Michelle, Adam, and Adam’s mother. Later, Michelle and I were going to head over to Denver to shop for a wedding dress. Lisa Leann would have a fit if she knew that Michelle and I were looking at dresses without her expertise, but I had dreamed of this day since the day Michelle was born, and I wanted no one else involved.
Of course I would allow Michelle to pick out her own dress. I’d certainly allowed her sister the privilege for her wedding. Over the past couple of months, Michelle and I had studied stacks of bridal magazines and had pretty much decided that her dress would be a strapless sheath with lots of beads or lace, and in white. Her bridesmaids would wear black trimmed in metallic silver. It would be an en vogue wedding. And I would be the sober mother of the bride.
On my way to our Potluck Club, which was meeting at Evie’s despite Lisa Leann’s protests to have it at her boutique, I stopped by Goldie’s. Samuel had seen Jack in the bank the day before, and Jack had told him that Goldie would be flying in later in the day but that she wasn’t ready for a lot of company. I understood, having also lost my father and still missing him as though his death were yesterday. But Jack had told Samuel that if anyone would be welcome right now, it would be me. I took that as a sign to keep her arrival quiet and to slip over for a few minutes.
Goldie looked to have lost about ten pounds in the last few weeks. But her hair was nicely styled, her makeup had been lightly applied, and she was dressed as though she were going to the club meeting.
“Lizzie,” she said when she answered the door. “I’m so glad you
came.”
I had brought a cake. I extended it toward her. “Got coffee?”
“Is that your mystery mocha cake?”
“It is.”
Then she smiled. “Then I have coffee.”
As we gathered around her kitchen table I noted the strong scent of Pine-Sol wafting through the house and the sound of both the washer and dryer doing their jobs from the adjoining laundry room. No doubt Goldie was working overtime in the housecleaning department since her return. I felt good knowing I’d given Goldie what had to be a much-needed break from her labors.
With thick slices of the cake and steaming cups of coffee before us, Goldie shared with me about her time away, her father’s life, his death and funeral. She cried, and I supplied tissues from a small pack I keep in the tidy crevices of my purse. At one point, my emotions raw with memory of the loss of my own father, I cried with her.
When we’d dried our tears and finished off the last moist crumbs of our cake slices, Goldie asked, “So what’s on your agenda today?”
“I’m having tea with Michelle, Adam, and his mother, and then Michelle and I are going to a shop in Denver to narrow down the search for her gown.”
“Oh, what fun. I remember doing the same for Olivia. Of course, she didn’t like anything I liked.”
“So far Michelle and I have agreed on everything. At least what we’ve seen in the magazines and catalogues.”
“Good for you,” she said sincerely.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “And we have the club meeting in a bit.”
Goldie looked appalled. “Oh no! I forgot!”
“Don’t worry about it, Goldie. No one expects you to show up. Heavens, no one even knows you’re back in town.”
She nodded. “Secrets,” she said after a time.
“What?”
“Keeping secrets. My brother Preston and I were talking about it just yesterday. ‘No one knows,’ you said. He’s been carrying a secret from the family and I’ve been carrying a secret from them since nearly the year Jack and I married. You know, our problems . . . our secrets.”
I straightened my shoulders. “Where is Jack?”
“Grocery store. I gave him a very long list. I told him I’m just not ready to handle seeing a lot of people yet, but we need some real food in this house.”
I nodded in understanding but said nothing. When I stood to
carry my dishes to the sink, I gathered hers as well.
“We share our secrets when we’re ready and not a minute before.”
I whirled around. “I’m sorry?”
“That’s what Preston said to me yesterday.” Goldie rested her chin in the palm of her hand. She stared straight ahead, but not at me. “Do you ever wonder what secrets our friends carry, Lizzie?”
I crossed my arms. “No. That wouldn’t be right.”
She cut her eyes over at me, then gave a slow smile. “Liz . . .”
I sat again at the table. “Would you want them wondering the same about you?”
“No one has to wonder about me,” she said. “Everybody in this town knows.”
I touched her hand lightly. “Not everyone.”
She didn’t answer, but her eyes narrowed as though she were deep in thought. “Lisa Leann. Now there’s a woman with secrets, I’d be willing to bet you.”
“Goldie!”
Goldie shrugged. “Maybe being in the South for a while has brought out the stinker in me. Southern ladies sure do love a good tale, and they don’t really care who it’s about.”
I stood. It was best I leave. “Who doesn’t? I have to go. What can I do for you?”
Goldie stood too. “Ask the girls to pray for Mama. For my family. For me. But tell them I’m not ready for company just yet. Make that point especially with Lisa Leann.”
We walked to the door. “When will you go back to work?”
“Monday. Chris was kind to let me off as long as he did, but I need to get back to normal as soon as possible. I just don’t want to have to recount the story of Daddy’s passing over and over to everybody and their sister. Not right now.”
I gave her a hug at the door. “I understand totally,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Lisa Leann was still less than happy that we weren’t having the meeting at her boutique.
“I told you, Lisa Leann,” Evie said to her after several sighs from our favorite Texan, “that our club meetings should be here and our catering meetings should be at your place. Thus, we do not get the two confused.”