I wished she would laugh, but she sighed again instead. Laura wasn’t usually a sigher, and they came out like little puffs of pain.
“Ben said he was real happy for us both,” she continued, “and that he just wanted to know if any of the limos needed servicing before the weekend. He went on back to work then, but after Skell left, he came to my office again and said the reason he’d come in at first was to tell me that a mechanic down near Dublin is selling out, and Ben wants to buy his place. They talked this morning, and it looks like they can deal, so he wanted to give me a month’s notice.” She tried a laugh, but it fell flatter than a week-old hairdo. “I must be jinxed, Mac. Everybody’s leaving me. Nicole, Ben—”
Daddy.
She didn’t say it, but I knew she was thinking it.
“Don’t take it personal, honey. You said Ben has been wanting his own place.”
“I know, but I hoped—” She stopped and rallied, trying so hard to sound cheerful she nearly broke my heart. “Yeah, that’s what he really wants. I’m real happy for him, actually.”
“Have you heard from Nicole?”
“No, and she’s got a paycheck here and some personal stuff in her desk drawers. You don’t know how to reach her, do you?”
“No, but you could check the Augusta phone book. There might not be too many Shandy families in town.”
“Yeah.” She still sounded lower than a crawling baby’s knees. When I didn’t jump in to say something else, she asked, “You think it would be all right to call her?”
“The way you two were giggling together last Monday, I think she’d like to hear from you. She’s probably feeling pretty bruised right now, and embarrassed.”
“I can’t promise her anything until I talk to Skell—”
“You don’t have to promise her anything, honey. I don’t want to tell your mama, but your daddy left her a little something to get her started. Why don’t you just call to see how she is?”
As Laura hung up she sounded like at least one ray of sunshine was peeping through her cloudy day.
Next I called her mother and, of course, got Tansy. Gwen Ellen never answered her own phone.
“Hey, Tansy, it’s MacLaren. How’s Gwen Ellen this morning?”
“She’s gone to get her hair washed again—she said they put too much stuff on it for the funeral, and it was getting all flat.”
“If she’s thinking about her hair, she must be feeling a bit better.”
“She’s doin’ all right,” Tansy opined, “considerin’ what she’s been through. She spent yesterday boxing up all of Mr. Skye’s things and had Skell carry them downstairs.” She echoed Laura’s anxiety. “You think she’s going to be sorry later she gave them away so fast?”
“It seems soon to us, but she knows when she’s ready to let the stuff go. Love has its own seasons.”
“Her season has been helped a lot by having Skell here. This morning she had already started in on a little bit of cereal, but when he said, ‘Tansy, can I have eggs and bacon?’ she said, ‘I think I’ll have some, too.’ That’s the first real meal she’s eaten since Saturday a week. It sure did me good to see it.”
“Does me good to hear about it. When will she get back from the beauty parlor?”
“Too soon, I can tell you that. Her appointment was for nine. Before she left, she told me to call somebody to come pick up the boxes and suits before she gets back. I want ’em for the clothes closet down at my church, but I can’t reach the reverend and I hate for her to come back and find ’em still here. I guess I’ll try that secondhand place over on Bond Street.”
“Why don’t I send one of our trucks over to pick up the stuff and take it to your church? If nobody’s there, the driver can leave a note for your preacher to call here, and we’ll just leave everything in the truck until then.”
“That would be so nice of you, Miss MacLaren. I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate that. We’ve got folks who can sure use all these fine suits and stuff.”
“Glad to help.” I was. It’s nice to be appreciated, and Tansy might be the only one to appreciate me that day.
I hung up and spoke with one of our drivers, then sat trying to figure out how justice could best be served without my hurting people I loved. I finally concluded it could not be done. What Skye had thought was his own private business was oozing all over the place now that he was gone, becoming public and very messy. The Bible isn’t kidding when it says the dark things we do in secret will one day be shouted from the housetops. The problem is, it is so often other people’s housetops.
The person who would get hurt the most, once more, was Gwen Ellen, so I wanted to see her soon. When I called a second time, Tansy told me, “Your truck came and we just finished loading. Miss Gwen Ellen says I should go with him, to help him unload and put the things on hangers so they’ll be ready for people who want them on Sunday. Then she says for me to go on home again. She’s got an appointment later anyway, and will be busy all day.”
“So she’s back? I want to run over and see her.”
“She’s upstairs right now, but I’ll tell her you’re coming.”
The courthouse clock chimed ten as I drove past. A minute later the Episcopalians chimed in with their spirited rendition of “Fight the Good Fight.”
“I’m doing my best,” I assured them as I drove past.
The truck and Tansy’s car were both gone when I got there. Gwen Ellen answered the door, lovely in moss-green pants, a creamy silk top, and a green tweed jacket that brought out green flecks in her eyes. I would have known without being told that she had just been to the beauty parlor, because the lovely smells that go with pampering wafted through the screen, and her hair had that silky sheen that is hard to get at your own bathroom vanity. “That style sure suits you,” I told her.
“Thank you. I can’t talk long because I have an appointment, but I think we have time for a cup of tea. I’ve just put the kettle on. Shall we sit out on the sunporch? It’s so pleasant today.” She moved to lead the way, but we both turned as a red Jeep Cherokee crackled up the gravel drive-way and pulled to a stop beside my car. Behind me, Gwen Ellen huffed daintily and muttered to herself, “She’s too
early.”
I certainly never expected Marilee Muller to get out and head toward us. She looked like a blazing candle in pants and a jacket as red as her car, her hair the yellow flame. She had a determined set to her head and a charming smile on her face.
She was already talking as she approached us. “Hello, Mrs. MacDonald. Judge Yarbrough.” She added that as an afterthought, and gave me an odd, doubtful look. If she’d made this appointment for the showdown she’d threatened with Gwen Ellen, she couldn’t be pleased to see me.
“Do come in.” If Gwen Ellen’s welcome wasn’t warm, it was at least polite. The three of us went through the kitchen to the glass sunroom where Gwen Ellen had raised the bamboo blinds to catch the morning sun.
I claimed one of the green wicker chairs, took a deep breath of soft, fragrant air coming through a slightly open window, and decided to outstay Marilee. Surely she wouldn’t have the nerve to go through with a showdown with me right there. What could she hope to accomplish anyway? The person who said confession is good for the soul didn’t mean the confession of a mistress to her lover’s widow.
Marilee and Gwen Ellen each took a seat, and we sat there like the proper Southern ladies we were, all raised by mothers who sent us out into the world every morning with the warning, “Be sweet, now.” We talked about the weather, the new Mexican restaurant, and whether global warming had been causing all that rain. In a lull, Gwen Ellen put up her right hand to smooth her hair. Her new diamond sparkled in the sunlight.
Marilee stared. Her tongue darted out to lick her upper lip. “Where did you get that ring?” Her voice had almost no breath behind it.
Gwen Ellen steadied the stone with the fingers of her left hand and held it out for our admiration. “Skye bought it for me. Last Sunday was the thirtieth anniversary of the day we got engaged. Isn’t it lovely?”
“He never gave it to you.”
“No, Laura found it in his safe Sunday afternoon.”
Marilee lifted her chin. “He bought that ring for me.”
I felt a shiver of fear climb my spine. Things could go dreadfully wrong here.
Gwen Ellen’s eyes widened, and she pressed herself back in her chair. “I beg your pardon?”
“He bought it for me. He hadn’t gotten around to telling you, but your husband and I were planning to be married. Ask Judge Yarbrough—I told her all about it. He bought that ring for me. He showed it to me last Friday, then put it in his safe until he could tell you about us and get his divorce.”
Gwen Ellen turned so white I thought she’d faint, but she just sat there, staring at Marilee. Her eyes seemed larger and darker than usual.
I leaned toward Marilee and spoke firmly. “I think you ought to go. This isn’t helping anybody.”
She didn’t budge. “See how loose it is on her finger? It fits mine.” She held out her left hand with its large strong fingers. “It’s the last thing I have from Skye. I want it.”
Whatever Gwen Ellen was about to say, she was saved by the whistle. The kettle emitted a sound like an old-fashioned factory at quitting time. It was certainly quitting time for that conversation as far as I was concerned.
I started to stand. “I’ll make the tea.”
Gwen Ellen waved me back. “No, I’ll do it.” She rose unsteadily, putting out one hand to keep her balance.
“You don’t have coffee, do you?” Marilee asked. “I’ve never been a tea person. If you don’t, it’s all right. A glass of water will do.”
“There’s coffee. It’s no bother.” Gwen Ellen moved out of the room like a woman negotiating her way underwater. I felt a little at sea myself.
“That was very cruel,” I informed Marilee.
She gave a little shrug with one shoulder. “I didn’t mean to be, but there’s no point in pretending. If something is true, it’s true.”
“Honey, if Southern women hadn’t pretended for the last two hundred and fifty years, we’d all be snatched bald-headed by now. Pretending is the cornerstone of polite society.”
We didn’t say another word until Gwen Ellen came in with a tray holding a china teapot, the pot from her cof feemaker, and three cups. “I used the butterfly cups,” she told me, adding to Marilee, “The butterfly stands for resurrection.” She set the tray on the green wicker table and poured out. “Sugar?” she asked Marilee, holding a cube above her cup with silver tongs.
“Yes, please.” Maybe Marilee would be nice after all. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her long legs, and seemed prepared to pretend this was a normal tea party. She didn’t mention the diamond ring. Gwen Ellen had taken it off.
After Gwen Ellen dropped three sugar cubes in Marilee’s cup and offered milk, which Marilee refused, she poured our tea and handed me a cup with lemon. She squeezed a slice of lemon into her own and raised it to her lips. “Poor Tansy,” she said softly. “This past week has plumb worn her out. I told her not to bother coming back when she finishes at the church.”
Instead of sitting down, she fussed around the porch, carrying her cup and taking occasional sips as she pinched yellow leaves off the potted geraniums and dropped them into the wastebasket. She bent to straighten a stack of magazines. “These are so old. I need to go through things in this house and throw stuff away. We’ve been here so long that all the closets are crammed and all the window seats are full. Remember, Mac, how you once said you’d bring your extra stuff over here to store because we had so much storage space? We don’t have any extra space right now.”
“This past week has worn us all out,” I told her. “Sit down. Don’t fool with those right now.”
“I feel like I could sleep a hundred years,” she admitted. But when she sat, she merely perched, still sipping her tea. “More?” she asked.
Marilee took another cup of coffee, and Gwen Ellen poured herself more tea. I didn’t like this particular tea she was serving—it was one of those fancy new ones she was always trying—so I claimed that my cup was still half full, but kept sipping to avoid talking.
In all our years of friendship, I couldn’t remember feeling so uncomfortable with Gwen Ellen. Normally she was a restful person to be with. Now she kept watching Marilee as if afraid she’d burst out again.
Marilee sipped her coffee and frowned, as if trying to decide what to say next. I still wondered why she had come.
I crossed my legs one way, decided that wasn’t comfortable, and tried them the other. “Laura told me about what you are doing with the business, Gwen Ellen,” I said. “I think that is grand. She loves it as much as Skye ever did.”
Gwen Ellen nodded. “Skell never has, you know. I hope he’ll let her run it and find something else to do, something he really likes.”
“I’m sure he will.”
We could have been actresses sitting on a stage. I just wished somebody had handed me my script ahead of time, so I’d know my part. I was so unaccustomed to sunshine that I was getting drowsy, too—or maybe that was my antihistamine kicking in. But I was determined to outstay Marilee. Was she hoping I’d leave? I crossed my legs again and prepared to wait her out.
At last she came to a decision. “Could we get to the point? I have an appointment this afternoon.”
I looked from one to the other in surprise. Gwen Ellen had called this meeting?
She set down her cup with a dainty
click.
“Very well. You went with my husband to a ranch for a week, didn’t you? You went as Mrs. Fergus MacDonald.”
Marilee was startled but bold as brass. “Yes, I did. Did Skye tell you?”
“No. I saw an envelope in his office addressed to both of us, so I took it with me. I read it in the beauty parlor while I was waiting to get my hair cut. It said they hoped we enjoyed our week with them and would come again. But I’d never been there.” Her face was very pale. “Can you imagine what it was like to have to sit there pretending my world hadn’t just ended?”