Palmetto Moon (22 page)

“Claire has worked so hard, Mr. Sheridan—” He raises his eyebrows so that he doesn’t have to ask for the third time. “Reggie. Really, she has. You’ll not find a more diligent woman, caring, beautiful—” Claire gives me a good stiff elbow to the ribs and is the color of a freshly cooked lobster.

“And you are?” He extends his hand toward me, and I shake it curtly.

“Vada.”

“And do you have a surname Vada?”

“Hadley,” Claire blurts out.

“Really?” Reggie rocks back on his heels a little and looks like he’s sorting through acquaintances in his mind. “Of the Charleston Hadleys? Your father wouldn’t by any chance be Matthew Hadley, would he? You do favor—”

“No.” I’m trying to remain calm, but I’m every bit as red as Claire. “Not those Hadleys.”

“
Hmm
. Maybe not.”

“Of course not.”

“You do favor Katherine, her nose, I think.”

I peel Jonathan from behind me, and he is miffed that he is back on my hip again.

“Put me down. I’m a big boy.” His words break Claire’s heart. Oh, this isn’t going the way I thought it would at all. “Put me down.”

“I have to go, get the baby home.”

“I’m a big boy.” He’s kicking so hard, I have to throw him over my shoulder.

“Yes, it appears that you are a big boy.” He shakes one of Jonathan’s flailing hands, but the boy is impervious to Reggie’s charm and squirms even harder.

“But rest assured, Mr. Sher—Reggie—that Claire Greeley is the best woman who will ever come into your life.” It’s clear he’s enjoying Jonathan’s show and my exasperation as I fight with the doorknob. Finally, the door flings open, and I start down the palatial staircase. “And I,” I say, as Jonathan is still kicking and proclaiming his independence for all he is worth, “am a descendant of the poor Hadleys, the very, very poor Hadleys, who are most certainly
not
from Charleston.”

The last time Reggie left this place, he was running away from everything it represented. But standing in the foyer, he feels strangely at home, something he never felt growing up here, something he had found with Lesley in Florence.

He likes what the widow woman has done to the place. She hadn’t known to rehang the heavy tapestries along the staircase. Instead, she’d uncrated some of the watercolors he’d bought from a fellow artist of Lesley’s and hung them where the depressing relics from the Middle Ages once were. His father had called the gaudy dark weavings great works of art, but their depictions of savage wars, complete with beheadings, had terrified him as a child.

From where he stood, she’d also gotten the Persian rugs all wrong, laying the dark and heavy ones in rooms where the windows accentuated their colors and the lighter ones in the mahogany-paneled rooms to brighten them up. Even dead, he was sure his mother was exasperated with the touches Claire had put on the place, but he was quite pleased.

“I know you asked me not to uncrate your paintings,” Claire says, her voice barely above a whisper, “but a few of the crates came open during shipping, and these,” she waves at the watercolors, “were so beautiful. I thought they’d look nice on the stairway. Brighten the place up a bit. I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s beautiful, really, Claire—do you mind if I call you Claire?”

“No. Of course not. Would you like to see the rest of your house?” She’s quite lovely, especially when she blushes. “Except for the third floor. There are still a lot of boxes and crates. But I’m working on it.”

“You’ve done a fine job.” From what he can see, but he can’t move just now. With his family long since dead, it would hurt too much to wander the same rooms he had as a lonely child. And now, with Lesley gone . . . This was a bad idea, coming home. And is this really home? It had never felt like it. He was twenty, barely a man, when he’d left for Europe. Twenty-five years later, part of him feels like he is still running. But from what?

“I wasn’t sure about the rugs,” she says nervously.

“They are perfect.”

“I’d be happy to give you a tour.” As nervous as she is, Reggie can tell that she’s proud of her hard work, as well she should be. He has no idea of what the place looked like before he instructed it be prepared for his arrival, but it’s positively gleaming now.

“Maybe tomorrow.” He hopes she can see he’s not ready for this now, but she’s obviously hurt. He looks away from her, ashamed. He can’t accept this place, this life, without Lesley. But the shock of seeing the wooden boxcars he’d played with as a child on his mother’s gaudy Louis XV chest unhinges his feet. One of the servants, Charles, had been teaching him how to make these in the woodshop when his mother caught him and tanned his hide for fraternizing with the help. Charles had felt so bad about it, he made Reggie a whole train set, and, like so many things, Reggie had concealed it from his mother for fear of her reaction.

“I hope you don’t mind. Daniel, my oldest, was helping me and found these. It’s a fine set, he said so himself, and he tries very hard not to be impressed by anything.”

“No. Of course, I don’t mind at all.”

“Peter, my middle son, thinks they’re wonderful, too. But I haven’t let Jonathan—”

“The vocal one?”

She nods and is really quite beautiful when she smiles. “Jonathan’s just a baby, he’s too little to play with them.”

“Really?” He likes her. She’s a warm, wonderful mother. He can tell just by the way her voice changes when she speaks of her boys. He picks up the cars that are linked together by little metal hooks and spins the wheels on the first secret he learned to keep. “He looks like precisely the right age, Mrs. Greeley—Claire.” She looks away like he’s admonished her, but he understands her wanting to hang on to her little one like that. At least he thinks he does. “When I was growing up, this was a dreary, awful house.”

“I hardly believe that. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t have imagined anything more grand.”

“My parents made sure it was always as quiet as a grave, which was horribly difficult as a child. To be honest, I’m not even sure I can live here again. Certainly not like that. So please, the boys are welcome here anytime and, by all means, let them play with anything they can find.”

“That’s quite generous of you.”

There’s nothing generous about me, he thought. I’m incredibly selfish; Lesley reminded him of that playfully but often. Having the boys here might serve as insurance against the solitude, and perhaps make this place a home, a real home. “You’ve done a fine job, Claire. I’m sure the rest of the house is stellar.”

“I really would love to show it to you.”

He hesitates before he offers her his arm. “May I?” She blushes again, obviously unaccustomed to such pleasantries.

He stifles his laughter at the way she’s put the downstairs together, the way she’s taken the heavy, austere richness of the place and turned it inside out to make it look—well, he’s not sure what to call it, actually. Cheery? If his parents were here, they would fire the woman on the spot, or perhaps have her arrested for high crimes against gaudy ostentation.

They start up the same grand staircase that near-royalty once ascended, remarkably without falling on their faces. Or, who knows, maybe with their haughty noses so high, they did, and his parents conveniently edited that part of history. The same way they’d edited his story, even to their graves.

Claire runs her hand across the base of a frame of one of the impressive watercolors he’d offered the artist a fortune for, but the artist had refused because the gift was meant for both him and Lesley, and Lesley was dear to him, too.

“Really, sir—”

“Reggie.”

“Yes, of course. You have some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. This job has been a true pleasure, and I’m sure with some care everything will be back to the way it was before you left.”

He watches the patterns the sunshine makes on the second-floor landing and hopes Claire is wrong. His father stood in that spot so often, his footprints are permanently indented on the runner. He loved to survey his kingdom from here, especially the gardens. Reggie feels a pang of guilt that he let the weeds take over his mother’s gardens, that he just had the caretaker watch over the house.

“Thank you, Claire. That’s very kind of you to say.”

Before Reggie had left for good, Charles had made him a little pouch with a handful of sandy rich soil from one of the fields. He spoke a few Gullah words over it and told Reggie to wear it around his neck to keep him safe, to remember where he came from. But like the prodigal that he was, Reggie had wanted to forget everything about this place and had thrown it in the Arno River the first chance he got, not giving it another thought until Lesley was gone and he was lost and alone again.

Why had he come back home? To make peace with this place or to fill up another pouch and leave? From the center of the garden below the giant crape myrtle tree he’d climbed on as a boy waves at him. It is split down the middle from a lightning strike, a sign from God that coming back was a huge mistake. Yet both sides are alive with delicate bunches of fuchsia-colored blossoms.

“Order up.” Frank shoves the first plate of the day in the window.

Tiny looks down at the crab cakes sitting alongside buttered grits and gives him that know-it-all smirk of hers. “I know who put the good on your candy this morning.”

Frank smiles before he catches himself. “If you don’t get that plate out, I’m gonna be looking for another waitress.”

“Save yourself the trouble, Frank. You won’t find one as good as me.” She yanks the plate onto her forearm like it’s not hot and grabs the coffeepot to avoid making two trips.

“One that actually works, that’s not a smart-mouth.”

“Better watch whose weeds you’re pissing in, Frank Darling. You might just get your wish, and then you’d be riding this gravy train on biscuit wheels.” She turns to scurry back with orders from two tables of truckers who were sleeping in the parking lot before Frank opened up.

“Sweet-potato biscuits,” Frank says with a full-on grin when she returns to the window.

“Lord. And it ain’t even Christmas.” Tiny nods at a wiry little trucker who hollers for more coffee. “I bet if you had half a chance, you’d drink that girl’s bathwater.”

Frank gives her a one-fingered salute, and she saunters off with the same behind her back.

Hank Bodette starts toward the diner from the back of the store. This place isn’t that big, but Frank bets himself he can flip the dozen hoecakes on the griddle and they’ll be done before Hank gets to the counter. Tiny is in the middle of listening to one of the trucker’s stories, her secret to getting big tips; Hank nods at her, points to the cup he brings from home every day, and beams when Tiny finally slides behind the counter to serve up his coffee.

“Pretty day out, but not half as pretty as you, young lady. How are you this morning?”

“Well, I’m kicking, Hank, but not real high. How about you?”

He pours too much sugar into his coffee and stirs it thoughtfully. “Can’t complain. I got a good job. The view is mighty pretty from where I sit, watching you pass by.”

“You’re slicker than a mess of okra, Hank. And twice as handsome.” Tiny shoves her pencil behind her ear. She balances two plates on each arm and holds one in each hand; she’d probably carry one on top of her big head if it were flat. “You boys better be hungry,” she calls to the truckers.

Hank watches her prissy butt walk away, sighs like a schoolboy, and looks back at Frank. “Well, I’ll be getting back to work, Frank. There’s a lot of mail today. The mailman didn’t come two days. Truck broke down.”

Tiny puts the hard sell on all the truckers about the biscuits, but none of them want to pay extra. In truth, they cost the same as a regular biscuit that comes free with a meal. She’s trying to get ten cents apiece for them, and Frank can’t help but smile. Big Jim, a Georgia man who stops in the diner at least once a week, is sweet on Tiny but is too shy to flirt with her. He orders a dozen biscuits for the table and tells her to wrap up the rest for him to take along.

“Forgot to tell you something.” Hank is back at the counter, looking like he’s not at all sure what he remembered. He pats his pockets and the lightbulb goes on when he finds what he was looking for. “You told me to be on the lookout for mail to that pretty gal of yours.”

He sets a postcard down in the window, and Frank wipes his hands off on the rag he keeps over his shoulder. The card is just like the ones Hank sells in the post office for two cents. Frank runs his finger over the stamp with Abe Lincoln on it, and then turns it over quick because there’s nothing honest about what he’s doing. Wentworth’s handwriting is as gaudy as she is.

Dear Vada,

Still looking for Darby. May require more resources at some point to keep up an extended search, but confident I’ll find her. Perhaps your next postcard will be from Darby herself.

Sincerely,

Kittie Wentworth

Frank can hear the harlot’s smirk in the ridiculous words that are meant to fan Vada’s hopes of finding her friend. He should toss the postcard on the trash heap where it belongs, but honest Abe is eyeing him, reminding him how thrilled Vada will be when she sees the card, that she’ll probably come around every day hoping for another. Above all, Abe Lincoln is screaming at Frank to do the right thing and give it to her. She’ll be over the moon for sure, which will play in his favor, and it will buy him more time to make her see what a grifter the harlot is.

The postcard is barely in his shirt pocket when the screen door opens. She glides into the diner.

“Morning, Vada,” Tiny hollers from the back of the diner. “Be right with you.”

Vada picks the menu up off of the table and pretends to study it, when they both know what she came for. She must feel Frank looking at her. She pinches her lips shut with her teeth and still smiles like she’s on the verge of a belly laugh, if a girl like Vada does such a thing.

“What’ll you have, shug?” Tiny flips the page on her order pad and licks the end of her dull pencil. Frank can’t hear what Vada is saying, but Tiny is nodding, smiling, making small talk, but not too much, before she clips Vada’s ticket onto the wheel. “That girl blushes when she orders the crab cakes, like she’s sending you a love letter instead of asking for breakfast. Why, the last time I saw her, she was madder than a mashed cat, but it appears all that’s done with. No need to look at the ticket. Just the usual.”

There’s nothing usual about Vada Hadley. Frank gets to work on her order and is glad that breakfast is almost over. The postcard peeks at him as he plates her food, reminding him it’s a powerful thing that could go either way. Maybe it will make Vada happy and keep her coming to the diner, or to the store to check her mail six days a week. Or maybe it will break her heart when she realizes the harlot is playing her. Frank can’t abide that. He knows it shouldn’t be his choice as to whether or not she gets these cards, but it is. He buttons his shirt pocket shut and cleans the griddle, waiting for the diner to clear out.

As the last table of truckers leaves, a spindly, short one, who knows good and well Big Jim is sweet on Tiny, pinches her ass. Tiny’s a vocal woman to begin with, but Frank almost feels sorry for the guy, for what’s coming.

Quick as a cat, she catches him by the wrist. “Well, lookee here.” She gets the laugh she wants and, though he deserves it, the poor guy’s face is burnt red. She underlines letters just above his shirt pocket with her long index finger. “Dolphis.” She draws out his name like it has seventeen syllables. “Well, Dolphis, you do that again, and you’re liable to lose a couple of them dainty fingers.”

He finally has the good sense to pull away and rushes out to his truck, and the other truckers follow, ribbing him all the way. The satisfied look on Tiny’s face always comes under similar circumstances, usually after the diner has lost a customer for good. But Frank also knows that if Big Jim had done the same, Tiny would have pretended to ignore it. Then, when she thought nobody was looking, she would have wrapped up a couple of those sugar cookies he loves so well and slipped them into his pocket.

“It was a good morning.” Tiny reaches for the slop rag from behind the counter. “Good tips.”

“Yep, it was. You got somewhere to go before the lunch crowd comes in?” Frank nods at Vada, and Tiny seems to take the hint.

“Well, I do now. See you ’round noon, Casanova.”

He buses Vada’s table himself and slides into the booth across from her.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, Frank. I loved my breakfast, especially the crab cakes.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is. You just love me for my cakes.”

“Well, they’re sort of an added bonus.”

“But if you had to choose, right here, right now. Which would it be?”

“
Hmm
.” She props her elbows on the table and rests her chin on her clasped hands. “Gosh, that’s a hard one. You
or
crab cakes. And you’re sure it’s an either-or kind of choice?” She barely gets the last word out as Frank leans across the table and takes her smart mouth in a long, wet kiss, leaving her breathless. “I’m just not sure what . . . the attraction would be . . . without the food,” she says and returns the favor.

“You know damn well what the attraction is, and it doesn’t have anything to do with food.”

A loud noise in the back of the store pulls them apart. It could be Hank Bodette finally keeling over, for all Frank knows, but he’s staying right here. God, Vada looks beautiful, her eyes full of love, her face flush with want, and all he wants to do is make her happy. “I have something for you.”

“More food?” Frank shakes his head. “More kisses?”

“That’s for sure.” Frank slips the postcard out of his shirt pocket and lays it on the table between them. She looks horrified until he flips it over so she can read it.

In a flash, she’s on his side of the booth, pinning him against the wall with a long, deep kiss. “And now what do you think about Miss Kittie Wentworth?” Her lips are pressed against Frank’s. He can feel her smiling. “And me.”

“Lately, to be on the safe side, I’d say I don’t have an opinion. But if a postcard makes you this happy, I’m all for it.”

“I’d love to stay here and kiss the day away with you, Frank, but—”

“Why don’t you?” Frank pushes my hair off of my shoulder. “I’ll close the diner, give you all the kisses you want. Give you whatever you want.”

“Claire will be leaving for work soon, and I have to watch the boys.” He feigns brokenhearted-ness as I pull away, but that’s what it feels like to tear myself away from him. “Come over after you’ve closed for lunch?”

“And compete with the boys and the bachelors for your attention? Hell, no. I want you all to myself.” I laugh and press a tiny good-bye kiss against his lips.

“Sure you won’t change your mind and stay?”

“I have to get some things from the store. I’ll see you soon.” I can feel him watching me as I leave, and I know he feels the same kind of rubber-band love I do, the kind that stretches between two lovers only to pull them back together again and again.

Sweet old Mr. Bodette stands and smooths his thinning hair when I walk into the store. “Good morning, pretty lady.”

“Good morning, Mr. Bodette.”

“I sure wish you’d call me Hank.”

“I have a small list of things I need, and I’m sure I’ll find some things I don’t, Hank.” The blush on his stubbled old face is adorable. “I hope your Fourth of July was lovely.”

“It was. I understand you went out of town for the holiday. Home, somebody said.”

I think only about the best parts of our trip to Memphis and smile. “It was a wonderful holiday.”

Hank tallies up my purchases on a small paper sack, and his math is off, in my favor. I’m not sure whether he’s still flirting or he can’t add properly, but I’m guessing he was quite the ladies’ man in his day. I pay him and want to hug him for being so adorable. I’m almost out the post-office door when he calls after me. “Miss Vada, did Frank give you your mail?”

“Why, yes, he did.” I’m so excited I could fly all the way back to the boardinghouse.

“Here’s another for you.” He hands the envelope to me, and I shove it into the paper bag.