Tied to the Tracks (45 page)
Read Tied to the Tracks Online
Authors: Rosina Lippi
Angie did fall asleep on the couch in the reception area, but first she locked the door so that no one could come into the editing suite and surprise her. When she woke it was because the phone was ringing. She picked it up just to stop the noise.
John said, “Your cell phone is still off, and I’m an idiot.”
“Okay,” Angie said, her heart racing already just at the sound of his voice, which made her something of an idiot, too, though she wasn’t going to admit that to him just now.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m listening.”
“Christ, you’re a tough audience, Mangiamele.”
“Whine, whine, whine,” Angie said, smiling into the phone. “Give it up, Harvey.”
“Okay, here it is: I reacted badly this morning.”
“You were a jerk.”
“And insensitive. And wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Well, wrong in the way I handled the subject. I’ll keep my nose out of your business from now on. It’s between you and Miss Zula.”
Angie said, “This is very suspicious. Why are you capitulating so easily?”
“Maybe I’m learning,” he said.
“Maybe you are.” Now she was grinning so that her cheeks began to hurt. “So, is that the only reason you called?”
He cleared his throat. “No. I just talked to Caroline. She’s on her way home.”
Angie sat very still while he told her about his phone conversation with the woman he was—as far as everybody in Ogilvie still knew—going to marry tomorrow.
“So dinner tonight at Thomasina’s, and all will be made clear?”
“That’s the plan. I can’t see how this is going to work, but I have to go along with her, for now at least. And there’s something else. She knows about you. You and me, I mean.”
“You told her?”
“No, but she knew anyway. She said she saw it on my face when I look at you. She wasn’t unhappy about it.”
She said, “Are you unhappy about her not being unhappy?”
“Angie, I have no idea how I feel about anything. Except you.”
She closed her eyes and tried to think of Rivera, what she could say to John and what she should not, and how much worse it would be down the line when he found out the things she had been thinking but not sharing.
“What are you thinking?”
Angie imagined Caroline Rose getting up in front of Ogilvie’s entire Catholic population to announce the wedding was off because she was moving to New Jersey to live in sin with a woman. It was such an absurd idea that she hiccupped a short laugh. And, of course, she couldn’t say who Caroline loved with any certainty. “That I’d rather not be there tomorrow when Caroline makes her big announcement. Whatever it is.”
“Can’t you leave the videotaping to Rivera and Tony?”
“Do we need to be there at all?” Angie asked.
He said, “I’ll ask Caroline about that after supper, and then I’ll call you later. Can you wait up to hear from me?”
Angie said, “I doubt I’ll have much choice about it.”
You will not believe this,” Tony said when Angie got back to Ivy House a little past five. “I still don’t believe it, and I’m looking at it.”
He and Rivera were sitting at the kitchen table. Between them a manuscript, its pages slightly yellowed around the edges, typewritten rather than computer generated.
“What is that?”
Rivera put her hands flat on the table and bowed her head as if she were praying. “When we got to Magnolia House, we sat down with Miss Maddie and had some lemonade,” she said. “And so I asked her about Abe and Anabel Spate.”
“And?” Angie said, impatiently. “Come on, you mopes. It can’t be that bad.”
“It’s that good,” said Tony. “As soon as the question was out of Rivera’s mouth, Miss Maddie got up and took this out of a desk drawer and handed it to her.” He put his hand on the manuscript.
Apparently Maddie and Zula had been waiting for the question of Abe to come up ever since Tied to the Tracks first came to Ogilvie. According to Tony, Miss Maddie looked almost relieved.
“It’s Miss Maddie’s autobiography. Written in 1980, never submitted, never published.” Rivera picked up the manuscript and came across the kitchen to put it in Angie’s hands. She promptly slid to the floor, where she sat, her back against the wall.
“According to Miss Maddie, we can use whatever parts of it we see fit. As narration, if that seems right.”
“What will Miss Zula have to say about that?” Angie asked. It was a moot question, in some ways; the only question, in others.
“Miss Zula knows about the autobiography.”
“That it exists, or that we have it?”
“Both.” Rivera’s voice cracked.
“So what’s in it?” Angie’s voice sounded thin and far away, but that was because her heart was beating so hard.
“Everything,” said Tony. “And then some.”
It was ten o’clock before Angie even thought about John. All evening they had been sitting reading parts of the manuscript out loud to each other, sometimes just to hear the rhythm of the words, other times because the story dragged them along as surely as dogs on a leash.
“Why hasn’t she ever published anything?” said Tony, more than once. “She writes as well as her sister.”
At some point Angie had dug out her binder and started to take notes. They discussed strategy at first, how to bring Miss Zula into the conversation about the autobiography and how to handle the information it revealed.
“Voice-over narration,” said Rivera. “It’s the only way to do this.” Tony liked Anthea Bragg’s voice, which was low and a little husky; Rivera thought her sister would be a better choice.
There was an energy in the room, words sparking in the air.
“Do you think Maddie would have held it back and never given this to us if we hadn’t raised the subject of Abe and Anabel?” Tony asked, when they had settled down a little.
“I’ll bet it was Zula holding it back,” Rivera said. “It was a test, and we didn’t even know it until we passed and the gates opened.”
“It was a bet,” Angie said. She sat up straight. “She and Maddie had some kind of bet. Zula lost and she had to let Maddie give us the manuscript.”
That sounded exactly right, but what were they betting on? Angie looked at a quote she had copied down from the manuscript:
Not every woman is suited to motherhood. Our mother was one such woman.
“Without Maddie’s manuscript, whatever we put together would be only part of the story. Miss Zula knows that, but she would have let it happen.”
Not every woman is suited to motherhood. Our mother was one such woman.
“Without Maddie’s manuscript, whatever we put together would be only part of the story. Miss Zula knows that, but she would have let it happen.”
“It’s going to be an interesting discussion,” Tony said. “But it will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m hungry. Anybody want to go out while we can still get dinner someplace?”
“Thomasina’s,” said Angie, bolting up from her chair.
“Thomasina’s stops serving at ten,” Tony said, looking at her with some alarm. “It’s quarter after.”
Angie closed her eyes. “Tony, this is going to sound so rude, but could you go away? I need to talk to Rivera. Right now.”
“ ’S okay,” he said, pushing back from the table. “I’ll head on down to the Hound Dog and dine on Vienna Sausages.”
The doorbell rang.
“Too late,” Angie said. And to Rivera: “I’m really sorry, I wanted to tell you about this before. Caroline is back.”
Rivera’s face lit up, with excitement and with hope.
Tony looked at her with a new understanding. He said, “Oh.”
The doorbell rang again, and Angie went to get it.
The first thing to be thankful for, John realized when he got to Thomasina’s just before six, was the fact that the private room they had reserved for the rehearsal dinner really was private, isolated on the second floor, above the main dining room. The second good thing was the fact that Rob and Kai were right behind him, because otherwise he might have bolted when he saw Lucy Ogilvie already established at a table, deep in conversation with Harriet Darling.
John took a deep breath and raised his voice in what he hoped was friendly greeting. “Mama, don’t you look pretty this evening.”
She got up and came toward her sons, both hands outstretched so that the jewels on them caught light and shot it out again. “Now, boys,” she said, “how could I stay away, with Caroline going to all that trouble to make sure I was invited?” She went up on tiptoe to kiss John on the cheek, and whispered in his ear.
“Just say the word, sugar, and I’ll go, if you really want me to. But I do hope you’ll let me stay for all the fun.”
This was pure Lucy, endearing and infuriating all at once, and John laughed. He said, “Of course you have to stay, Mama. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Liar.” She winked at him and hooked arms with Rob and Kai. “Come on, children, let’s you and me go find a drink. Here come the rest of the Rose girls, and we don’t want to be in the way, do we?”
John took a deep, steadying breath and turned just in time to greet the four elder Rose girls as they came up the stairs, all of them looking slightly frazzled. Eunice took his hands and kissed his cheek and said, “I hope you don’t mind, John, but our husbands are all over at the hospital playing poker with Tab.”
“What Eunice is trying not to say,” Connie added, throwing her sister a fierce look, “is that we have an uprising on our hands. The husbands smell trouble and they have closed ranks because they don’t want any part of it.”
John tried to look surprised, but knew he had failed, because Pearl was scowling at him. “Oh, sure. Go ahead and laugh, but I warn you, worse is to come. Everybody is going crazy, your fiancée included.”
She marched off with Eunice trailing after her; Connie headed toward Kai, which might be a disaster in the making but there was nothing John could do about it just now, because Caroline was coming up the stairs with her mother on one side and Father Bruce on the other.
She looked up and caught John’s eye and smiled, a little tentatively, a little slowly, but what that might mean, he had no idea. What he did know with complete surety was that he didn’t want to be here, and that she didn’t, either. John went forward and kissed Caroline on the cheek without saying anything at all, and then he took Miss Junie by the hands and kissed her, too.
She regarded him for a moment with her solemn, gray-blue gaze and then put her hands on his face, gently, as though he were one of her grandsons and in need of comfort. “My poor baby,” she crooned. “You poor, poor man. I am so sorry, I truly am. Lucy, darling, come on over here and give me a kiss. I want you to sit right next to me, will you? I’ll need your support through this.”
It was Harriet who started it, by simple virtue of the fact that she was always the sister to say out loud what the others were thinking. No sooner had the ten of them sat down at the elaborately set table than Harriet popped up again. “I don’t care,” she said to Pearl in a harsh whisper. And then, tugging at the jacket of her suit, she cleared her throat. “We all know why we’re here. I say forget the food and let’s get the talk over with. Caroline, John, tell us what’s going on before I lose my mind and start throwing things. Mama, don’t look at me that way. I know it’s not ladylike, but really.” And Harriet sat down again, picked up her wineglass, and put it down hastily when she realized it was still empty.
Caroline caught John’s gaze and shook her head slightly. Her eyes were bright and her color high, and John was struck by how pretty she looked.
“Go ahead, Caroline Mae,” said Father Bruce, touching her elbow. “It’s best to be direct in matters like these.”
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Junie. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said, floating along on a cushion of flawless manners. John wondered if she realized that there was a muscle twitching in her cheek. She said: “I want you all to know that I am sorry for my behavior this past week. I realize I have caused you considerable worry and trouble.”
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