Now Let's Talk of Graves Page 9

  Yeah. Well. But. Sam had never had great luck with men. She kept losing them, misplacing them. Maybe she’d cure that with a change of vintage.

  But wait a minute. She sat up. What was this self-flagellation? A luxury she couldn’t afford. If she’d learned one thing in the program, it was that. Right, girl?

  Fine. On the other hand, stand back and check the record. Granted, nobody had any luck in love these days, that seemingly having gone out about the days of King Arthur, but good Lord!

  Item: Beau Talbot—the first love of her life. He’d jilted her when she was nineteen. Broken-hearted, crazy, she’d run off from Atlanta, from her uncle George, who’d become her father after her parents died. At Stanford, where’d she’d met Kitty, she’d discovered that she could drink, without even trying, in an afternoon, three-quarters of the way down a Jack Daniel’s label. She met Jimmy Harris her senior year.

  Item: James Covington Harris—tall, cute, bearded, pony-tailed. Big-time draft resister. Scion of a fine Republican family in Rancho Santa Fe, richest community in the state. She and Jimmy burned flags and smoked dope and dropped acid and got arrested. Then they up and got married one wine-soaked afternoon in a public park complete with redwoods and a spectacular view of the ocean. Their gig, as they called it, lasted four years, only some of which Sam remembered through a scrim of various legal and illegal substances and to the accompaniment of the Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker, and Neil Young. Then Jimmy decided he’d had it with revolution and thought he’d take up law, as had three generations of Harris men before him. He also thought he’d put down his embarrassment of a spouse who, increasingly, was a bit too loud. The last she heard he was practicing law in southern California, living off the fat of the land with his blond, blue-eyed third wife.

  Item: Faceless Men—a large number of them who she could not identify when she woke up the next morning, though she had a pretty good idea of what they’d been up to the night before. She ran through a lot of them for about six years.

  Item: Sean O’Reilly—her hip-popping, bebopping, tall, lanky Irish setter of a SFPD loverman. Sean had appeared like a gift after the long, tough dry spell during which she regained control of her life. Lost, three years earlier, to a drunk driver.

  Item: Beau Talbot—a brief reentrapment due to a moment (okay, a one-night stand) of insanity. Thereafter, they were kind to each other in the manner of old friends, meeting most frequently on business in the Atlanta morgue.

  Item: Occasional dates, no one special, i.e., a long dry spell, which, come to think of it, hadn’t been all that uncomfortable. Actually, it was rather nice discovering the grown-up Sam all by herself.

  Except that from time to time she could do with a spot of intimacy in her life. Or would you call that sex?

  Was that why her mind was running around the edges of Harry Zack’s collar, fingering open a couple of buttons? And wasn’t she the one so flippantly asking Harry if Church had taken a vow of celibacy? What about herself? And if that were true, what was that package of condoms doing rattling around in the bottom of her purse?

  Own it, Sam. You’re a horny, about-to-be-middle-aged lady who’s spotted a luscious mouthful of a young man.

  And? The urges weren’t exactly her fault. God made people that way.

  “Sam?”

  She almost jumped out of her skin.

  Then the rat-a-tat-tap at her door sounded again. “It’s Ma Elise. May I come in and sit down?”

  *

  “Get back in bed,” Ma Elise ordered. She settled into a slipcovered chair, tucked a quilt around herself. “My grandmother pieced this,” she said, “from hair ribbons, her husband’s ties, or maybe they called them cravats then, and scraps of her silk underwear.” Ma Elise’s white hair was plaited in a single long braid that reached halfway down the back of her pink flannel dressing gown. “We live with the past piled in with the present here. As if it were only yesterday—which it is in New Orleans time. Is it that way in Atlanta too?”

  “Not so much.” Sam was wondering what the old lady had come to tell her but letting her get to it her own way. “Some old families are still there, of course. But so many more of the new people.”

  “Yankees.”

  Sam smiled. “Yep. Took ’em more than a hundred years, but they’ve come back, and I’m afraid they’ve whupped us for good this time. Worse than kudzu. They’ve torn everything up, covered it in blacktop and shopping centers.”

  Ma Elise nodded. “The disappearance, as Kitty says, of grace and gentility. It’s happening around the edges here too. There’s an area out in Jefferson Parish, around the Lakeside Shopping Center, where there’s row after row of discos, bars—New Bourbon Street they say. As if Bourbon Street weren’t tacky enough. They call it Fat City. Can you imagine? Saying you live in Fat City?” She shook her head, and her braid flopped. She looked like a little girl dressed for bed. “Well, nobody cares what I think. That’s why old people live in the past. Did you know that? Because the present stinks.”

  Sam laughed. “I really feel that way about lots of things.”

  “Well, you watch that.” Ma Elise shook a knobby forefinger. “You’ll be old before your time. But, that’s not what I came in here for, disturbing your rest. Though it does have to do with the past, Church’s past.” She smiled at Sam’s reaction. “I thought that would make you sit up straighter.”

  Then she went on about Church and his bride, Madeline. Madeline was the prettiest girl at McGehee—the same private girls’ school, just around the corner, their daughter Zoe had attended. Sam scanned for what might be important, filing facts in imaginary folders.

  Church: young and virile, fighting for the hand of the fair Madeline with his archenemy, Maynard Dupree. Ma Elise sketched out a Count of Monte Cristo duel in Audubon Park beneath a daddy-of-’em-all live oak tree. They’d stolen foils from the fencing salle at Tulane. Each would bear a prize from the field—a scar on the chin, above the brow—to be fondled, stroked, and kissed in the years to come. To the death! or so they said, except old Miz Tilletson walking her dog just past dawn called the cops on them.

  In the end, Madeline chose Church.

  Madeline: Sam imagined a small woman, not as thin as Zoe, but with that same wildness of black curls, in a gossamer white gown flowing down to the dewy grass, blowing a kiss to the triumphant Church from the tips of her shell-pink hand.

  But what had gone wrong?

  “I don’t know,” Ma Elise said. “They were very happy. This was before Church started drinking. Zoe came along and their lives were complete. Then, when Zoe was about six, Madeline packed a bag one day and left Zoe a note: It’s not you, darling. You’re the best little girl in the world. I will love you forever. Now, isn’t that something to say to a six-year-old child—with not a word to Church. And off she ran.”

  Butter wouldn’t melt in Ma Elise’s mouth, thought Sam. But boy, oh, boy, was she lying, or at least not telling the whole truth.

  “Where is she now?”

  Ma Elise fiddled with the quilt. “I don’t know. We never heard another word.”

  “Why do you think she left Zoe behind? That seems such an unlikely thing for a mother to do.”

  “I don’t know. Of course she should have taken her.”

  “But then Church would have gone after her, wouldn’t he? Or did he anyway?”

  The old lady stared off into the past. “It’s funny how things turn out. We used to be such a big family, but Estelle was my only child, and she’s gone. She had Church and Kitty—and Kitty’s had no children—which leaves only Zoe. So if Madeline had taken her, well, I don’t know what I—”

  Sam tried again. “And you don’t know where Madeline is?”

  Ma Elise was firm. “No, I don’t.”

  “Her family must know.”

  “Oh, I suspect they do.”

  “Did you ever ask?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “So you do see them?”

  “Of course I do
. We know all the same people. But, well, it would be rude—don’t you see what I mean? None of the Villères would want to talk about that.”

  For the second time that night Sam thought, Oh, God, New Orleans.

  “What does Zoe know of the story?”

  “She knows her mother deserted her. Of course, we think she ran away with another man.”

  That was certainly an interesting piece of news. “What makes you think that?”

  Ma Elise shrugged—what else?

  “And Zoe never wanted to know more?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ve never talked about it.”

  “But maybe she’d like to know?”

  “Samantha, that’s all there is to know. And if Church knows—knew—more, well, he never told me. Even if he did, I couldn’t say anything about it, not even to Zoe. It would be disloyal.”

  “To whom?”

  “Why, to Church, of course.”

  At that, Sam couldn’t hold her tongue. “Ma Elise, I don’t mean to be butting into your business, but are you aware that Zoe might have a few problems?”

  “Like what, dear?”

  “Like she’s wasting away before your very eyes.”

  “Well, she is too thin. Yes, I can see that. But you know how girls are. I’m sure she wanted to look like Scarlett O’Hara for the Comus ball—you know, with a seventeen-inch waist. I was the same way when I was her age. Now that that’s over, she’ll put on some weight.”

  “But she’s even thinner than she was back in February.”

  “Well, my dear,” Ma Elise said, rising from the chair, throwing the quilt aside, “she’s lost her father. Don’t you imagine that’s good reason for her to have lost her appetite?”

  “Yes, but—”

  But the interview was over. Ma Elise gave her her back, was out the door. But then she stuck her head back in. She was wearing the sweetest smile. “I’m so glad we had this little chat, dear. Sweet dreams. I feel so much better now that I’ve explained about Church and Madeline.” The door was closing. “Good night, now. Nighty-night. Roses on your pillow—” Her little-old-lady voice faded down the hall.

  *

  Sam had barely finished jotting notes on what Ma Elise had told her, when there was another knock at the door. This, she thought, is absurd.

  “I know Ma Elise just left.” Kitty poked her head in. “You can kick me out if you want.”

  “Hell, no. I’m here to talk, right? Come on in. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Kitty settled into Ma Elise’s warm spot, snuggled under her great-great-grandmother’s quilt.

  “So, Kit, what’ve you got? Or are you just having trouble sleeping? Want to swap some what-ifs?”

  Her old friend grinned. “What if I grow up and marry a rock star? What if I get pregnant? What if I run away—around the world for ten years—will you go with me?”

  “Yeah. Like that.”

  “Actually, I heard Ma Elise creeping in and out of here, and I’m dying of curiosity. Did she tell you about Church and Madeline?”

  “She told me Madeline ran away, not much more than that.”

  “Well, I don’t know that there’s any more to it. Church told me Madeline fell in love with somebody else. What is there to say?”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you like Madeline?”

  Kitty played with the ends of her red ponytail. “Like her? Yeah, I liked Madeline. She was never my best friend; we sort of ran in different crowds. But I thought she was just fine—till she ditched Church and Zoe.”

  “Ma Elise said you’ve never talked with Zoe about it.”

  “That’s right. Why would we want to pick at that old scab?” Now she was playing with the sash of her flowered robe. “I guess that means you think we ought to?”

  Sam shrugged. “You know you’re talking to a woman who lost her mama and daddy at twelve. And as much as Uncle George and Peaches and Horace have been family for me, I’ve always missed them. I’d imagine Zoe’d feel the same way. With Church gone—well, doesn’t that open up the door to maybe finding Madeline? Surely there must have been some terrible thing that happened for her to leave her child that way.”

  “Well, there wasn’t. What she did was terrible, and I don’t know where she is. She could be dead for all we know, or care.”

  “Kitty, Kitty.”

  She was no better at lying than Ma Elise.

  “What?”

  Kitty always had had a short fuse.

  “Even if she just knew the circumstances of her mother’s leaving, don’t you think it might help her with her problems?”

  “Her food thing, you mean?”

  “And her nose.”

  “What’s wrong with her nose?”

  This was going to be tougher than she’d thought. “Come on, Kitty. Your denial and Ma Elise’s are only enabling her to keep sucking that stuff up.”

  Kitty leaned back into the chair, closed her eyes. “Okay. I know about the coke. Hell, I guess I just feel like she’s got so much on her plate, and now, if I was afraid to approach her drugs before, can you imagine how I feel now?”

  “Doesn’t change a thing. She’s still screwed up. She’s still gonna end up killing herself if you don’t try to help her do something about it. Her obvious eating disorder, doing coke. It all comes from the black hole, from the same place.”

  Kitty sat up. Back straight as a rifle barrel. “You make it sound like we’ve failed her.”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m sure you’ve done a great job. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s got some serious problems.”

  “Look.” Kitty was standing now, the quilt in a tumble on the floor. “I didn’t come in here in the middle of the night to talk about our failures in raising Zoe. I came to tell you something about Church, which is what I think I asked you over here for—to help us solve the insurance mess. You remember that?”

  “I remember.” Sam’s tone was flat, nothing on it. One of the gifts she’d discovered she had when she got sober was that when the going got tough, she became quieter, calmer.

  Certainly calmer than Kitty, who steamed ahead. “Well, put this in your bag of tricks when you set out on your hunt tomorrow. Church was seeing somebody, had been for a long time. Somebody he seemed to be real tight with. But it was a big-deal secret. This wasn’t one of the Uptown ladies he squired around for show. It was serious enough for him not to tell anybody, not even his own family. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. By the way, did we talk about your fee?”

  Whew! That hurt. “I’m here just because you asked me to come, Kit,” Sam answered softly.

  “Well, maybe we ought to have you on retainer. Or, let’s say a percentage of the bounty. Fifteen percent of what we end up with? Would that be about right? An agent’s fee, so to speak? So you can concentrate a little more on finding out the facts, getting this business settled, and less on giving advice?”

  “Kitty, Kitty.”

  There was some sore nerve here. Something really eating at her. Or something that she was afraid of.

  “Look—I didn’t mean to—”

  It was too late for apology. Kitty had already flounced out the door.

  Sam collapsed back on the drift of lace pillows behind her.

  What was it Kitty and Ma Elise were hiding? Something about Madeline and Church. There was something there—she knew it. And maybe, just maybe— She closed her eyes and saw two young men dueling under a sprawling oak at sunrise while a young girl in a long white dress looked on, wringing her hands—just maybe it was something about Maynard.

  Nine

  IN HER DREAM, she and Kitty were on the beach at San Gregorio just over the hills from Stanford. Nineteen again, they’d polished off a jug of cheap red wine. Or, rather, Sam had. Kitty needed only a couple of glasses and she was flying, yelling about how she was not putting up with any more of this crap from Sam.

  What crap?

  It was right there,
slipping, sliding, whoops, over the edge of the rocks like a dropped bottle, rolling, crashing, damn.

  The thumping was in the hall outside. Sam jolted awake, rubbed her eyes, waiting for that old bastard, Mr. Hangover, with his retchy breath to come and sit on her face. Lots of mornings started like this. Then she remembered. Only a dream, my dear. She was safe, still had 3,650-plus sober days under her belt. One at a time.

  She stretched long and tall under the embroidered bedcovers, rolled her neck. Aloud: God Almighty did I sleep!

  She didn’t know that before her arrival G.T. had helped her great-grandmother Ida turn the mattress in this room with the change of the moon and sprinkle it with crushed magnolia leaves, love oil, and talcum powder. Under the bed at the place where she rested her head they had placed a bowl of perfumed water.

  All she knew was that she felt like getting up, getting out, and slaying a few dragons—as soon as she’d had breakfast.

  It was one of her favorite meals, and if she was really lucky—and she had a feeling she was going to be because she could already smell Ida’s chicory coffee—there’d be creole cream cheese with French bread. And beignets, Ida’s about a thousand times better than the French Market’s fried dough squares, white with powdered sugar.

  She jumped out of bed, into the shower, and was reaching for her robe, toweling her hair, when she looked up to find Zoe sitting in a chair—the slipcovered one with the quilt. Zoe’s great-great-great-grandmother’s quilt. That quilt had to be magic.

  “So?” said Sam, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Zoe was wearing a pale yellow sweatshirt and pants, which were great with her coloring. But even though big and baggy, they didn’t hide the fact that there was a skeleton inside. A zonked skeleton. Take a look at those eyes. First thing this morning, Zoe was already on a toot.

  She chewed on a thumbnail. “You narc on me?”

  “’Bout what?”

  “’Bout the coke in the Ladies at the Roosevelt.”

  Sam liked that about youngsters. They might not tell you what you wanted to know, but they got right down to what was on their minds.