The Three Miss Margarets

by Louise Shaffer

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. Because at that moment she didn’t feel grateful. Later they would talk about Vashti’s accomplishments and the amazing way she had used the last two years. Now all they had was loss and sorrow.

  “When . . . ?” Lottie asked.

  “The symptoms started coming back about six months ago. That was when she called me and told me what she wanted. We did it her way this time, Lottie. It was all the way she wanted it.”

  There was another little nod and then no sound, as Lottie cried silently and Maggie held her.

  HANK HAD FORGOTTEN to buy coffee filters again. Laurel lined the basket of the strainer with a paper napkin and dumped a pile of Maxwell House’s finest into it. As the coffeemaker creaked into action, her mind went back to the tableau she’d seen the night before, the three women hugging one another on the porch of the cabin. Most people in town would think it was the most natural thing in the world for Vashti to want them with her when she died. Everyone knew how tangled up her family was with all three of them. But Laurel knew something else.

  WHEN LAUREL WAS TEN years old, Nella died and Vashti came home to bury her. Ma heard about Nella’s death and used it as excuse number three hundred and twenty-eight to hit the honky-tonks out on the highway. But on the day of the viewing Laurel had ridden her bike over to the black funeral home. She hadn’t been quite sure what she wanted to accomplish, maybe it was just that Nella had been such a mythic figure in her life that she couldn’t believe the woman was really gone. Or maybe, as usual, she was looking for some way to end her ma’s misery. Those were the days when she still believed she could.

  She never spoke to Vashti. When she got to the funeral parlor, the three Miss Margarets were there. They were standing with Vashti in a back hallway outside the room with the casket, and Vashti was blocking their way in. Laurel hid herself in the shadows and listened. “Get the hell out!” Vashti shouted, and Laurel had the feeling she wasn’t the kind of person who shouted often. “Get away from me and my mother, I don’t want you here!” There had been murmured protests Laurel didn’t hear, and someone said something about just for one minute, but Vashti shouted again. “You’ve done enough! Now leave us alone.” Laurel pulled away from her safe place at the wall just long enough to see Vashti’s face twisted with anger and grief. She backed away as fast as she could and left.

  IN HER BRIGHT ROOM at the nursing home that was now her world, Lottie’s eyes searched Maggie’s face. “You?” she whispered. “You and Li’l Bit? Peggy?”

  “We’re all right. It was hard. But she came around, Lottie. She came back to us. That meant so much to Li’l Bit and Peggy, that she came back at the end.”

  “And you.”

  “And me. She wasn’t angry at us anymore. She wasn’t angry at you. After all the years. . . .”

  And suddenly it was Maggie who was crying and Lottie who reached out with her good hand to stroke Maggie’s cheek.

  LAUREL TOOK A DEEP SWALLOW of her coffee, which was nice and muddy with a hint of paper-dye flavoring. The thing she’d learned about getting through one of Reverend Malbry’s journalistic efforts was, you had to keep believing there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Let yourself give up for one minute and you’d had it. She’d already figured out that what seemed to be “a doll’s toes” was “adultery.” She was tackling a phrase that seemed to be about hacksaws and parrots when she heard a knock at the front door.

  “Door’s open,” she called out. She heard someone come in. “Who is it?” she yelled.

  Whoever it was wasn’t answering, but she could hear them in the front of the building. She tossed down her pencil and went to investigate.

  Josh was standing in the lobby, looking at the ugly couch and chairs that decorated the area, courtesy of Hank’s mama.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I see you got to work all right.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Give me a break. I tried to drive you.”

  “Fine, you’re a prince. Why are you here?”

  He paused. “Vashti committed suicide. She was sick—”

  “I heard.”

  “Oh.”

  “Never underestimate the power of a small-town grapevine.”

  “She left a note, but I never got a look at it. Your pal Billy Joe Bob wouldn’t let me near it. He wouldn’t let any of his minions talk to me, either; only local press at this point, I was told.”

  “Sounds like Ed.”

  “Speaking of local press, your boss should have someone covering the story besides that guy who dresses like Ken Starr without the sex appeal.”

  “Actually, that is my boss.”

  “Does he ever ask the right questions?”

  “Josh, if you came here to make cracks—”

  “No.”

  “Or to tell me about Vashti—”

  “Not that either.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  He paused. “Look, I know you’re pissed at me and I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot—”

  “The wrong foot? Is that what you call it?”

  “If you’ll just—” He stopped. “Given the way things have turned out . . . I’m sorry I took you home last night, but—”

  “But there I was in a bar, half naked—”

  “Is that bothering you?”

  “No.” But it was—sort of.

  “Honey, I’ve seen girls ten years younger than you do things that—never mind. Just trust me, you singing “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” in your underwear doesn’t even register on the Richter scale.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  He blew out a lot of frustrated breath.

  “I’m busy, and you need to get out of here,” she said, and turned to go, but he stopped her.

  “I took you home because . . . because I’ve always been a pushover for smart angry girls who figure if they’re funny enough no one will notice how unhappy they are.”

  “I am not unhappy.”

  “And in spite of many years with a very good shrink, every time I meet one, I still think I’m the man who’s gonna get through to her and turn her life around.” He gave her a grin. “And . . . you were half naked.”

  She didn’t even give him a flicker of a smile. “And my father was part of a book you’ve been trying to write for years.”

  “Which I did not know. And I wouldn’t have gone to bed with you if I had.”

  “Because you can have a roll in the hay with anyone, but getting dirt for your book—now, that’s important.”

  “I’m not looking for dirt.”

  “I have to work.”

  “Okay, you want the truth? You bet I want to pump you about your father. I’ve been working on this book for a year and a half, and I’ve got a hell of a lot invested in it. If you’ve got anything to say that could add to it or make it better in any way—yes, I want your story.” He took a breath. “But I’ve also been thinking about you all morning. I wanted to find you. And I wanted to—” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You have to work,” he said, and started to leave.

  And because she could never ever in her life leave well enough alone, when he was almost out the door she said, “Don’t go.”

  BY THE TIME MAGGIE LEFT, Lottie still hadn’t eaten the cake. She stopped at the desk and asked them to put it away for her; then she called Li’l Bit on the public phone in the lobby.

  “I’m on my way,” she said. “Have you heard from Peggy yet?”

  “Not a word,” said Li’l Bit grimly. “I’m going to give her another half hour and then I’m going to call her.”

  “No, let her sleep. I’m sure she needs it.”

  Li’l Bit made the high little sound in the back of her throat that meant she was rolling her eyes in disapproval.

  JOSH CLOSED THE DOOR and came back into the lobby. Laurel sat on the couch and waited until he sat next to her. “You already know the good parts of m
y family saga,” she said, “if you’ve done your homework. My father—John Merrick—and Grady Garrison got into a fight over Nella Johnson, the mother of your heroine. Grady was so drunk he forgot to miss my daddy when he shot at him. So I wound up being a bastard, since at the time my ma had a bun in the oven, as we cute hicks say, but she and John hadn’t made it down the aisle yet. Nella and Vashti left town, and Vashti became your American success story. That about sum up your knowledge?”

  “Pretty much,” he said carefully.

  “Okay, here’s the part that didn’t get into the newspapers because Mr. Dalt kept it out. My daddy and Grady weren’t just having a little fun sharing a pretty black woman who may or may not have been willing. That was an ugly little pastime of theirs that I’m sorry to admit most folks around here dismissed as boys being boys. No, they were so serious about Nella they killed her husband one night.”

  If Josh said anything, one word, she was going to throw him out. If he even showed a sign of sympathy, he was history. His face was a blank.

  “Yeah,” she continued. “They ran him over with a car and left him by the side of the road. He may have been dead before they took off; he certainly was by the time the highway patrol found him. The official word on Richard Johnson was he died in a hit-and-run. But everyone knew who did it. They would have gotten away with it because of Grady’s daddy. But when Grady used my father for target practice . . . well, even Mr. Dalt couldn’t keep the lid on that.

  “So my daddy was dead, and Grady was packed off to jail, and my mother stayed here in town because, to be honest about it, she was too dumb to do anything else. Down here in those days having a baby without a daddy wasn’t chic, it was just slutty, and she couldn’t accept that my daddy had done her like that. She believed him when he said he loved her and she let herself get knocked up because he swore he had changed his ways. Like I said, she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

  “When he died it broke her heart, and I hate to offend your PC sensibilities but she was ignorant and racist enough that it made it a whole lot worse for her that she lost out to a black woman. So she probably wasn’t much of a human being, and in the general scheme of things, it probably didn’t matter that she became a drunk and a joke.” She forced a smile that was way too bright. “That’s my contribution to your great work, Josh. I’m the daughter of the redneck who killed a man and then got himself shot. Stick me in a footnote and go make a million dollars selling your book to the movies. I want Sandra Bullock to play me.”

  She waited for him to say something. But of course now that she wanted him to talk he didn’t. He just looked at her. And then he moved to her. It was a slow move, like he was underwater, or maybe that was just the way it seemed to her. Then they were facing each other. At most they were only a foot apart. She was the one who closed the gap.

  “I’m not sure I like you,” she said softly.

  “I know,” he said, at pretty much the same decibel level.

  For two people who hadn’t known each other long, they seemed to have quite a repertoire of kissing. Last night it had been mostly playful. This was more about bodies pressing against each other and mouths bruising lips against teeth. When he finally let her go, her knees did a little sagging thing. He seemed to be okay, which made him really hateful. Until he said, “Shit.” Which made them both laugh.

  And then the thing about laughing with a man who had his arms around you was, it could really get to you, so she pulled away.

  “One more thing you might like to know,” she said, in a masterful change of subject, “the reason the case against Grady Garrison was so tight that even his daddy couldn’t get him off? Miss Li’l Bit and Miss Peggy would have testified against him.”

  “I never read a word about that.”

  “Nothing was ever written. Grady pled guilty and there never was a trial. But Miss Li’l Bit actually saw the shooting from the ridge behind her house. And Dr. Maggie knew from old Lottie that Nella had been seeing the two men on the sly for months. The clincher was Miss Peggy. She saw Grady trying to hide the murder weapon in his daddy’s gun cabinet. There was nothing even Mr. Dalt could do after the police heard that.”

  “She told them?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “She was his stepmother.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Grady died in prison.”

  “Uh-huh. Ran into a couple of good old boys who didn’t like him.”

  “Peggy Garrison helped send him there.”

  “You betcha.”

  “Her husband’s son.”

  “Right.”

  “Sweet Jesus.”

  Chapter Twelve

  PEGGY WAS DREAMING ABOUT A DOG. A large starving Irish setter was clawing at the glass doors off the back patio, begging to come in. But she couldn’t let him. Because in the way that you know these things in dreams, she understood the dog was really Grady. And there was no way to help him. Still, the sick look in the dog’s eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life. It had been haunting her for years. The part of her mind that knew she was dreaming wanted to wake up because the dog was crying now, whimpering in pain, and if she couldn’t get herself awake soon the sound would turn to a man weeping. With a huge effort she hurled herself back into consciousness and woke up to look into two brown canine eyes. Elvis had been watching her sleep. The fact that she had fallen asleep—all right, passed out—on the couch in the living room with an empty bottle of bourbon on the floor beside her instead of tucking herself into her bed was enough of a departure from routine to worry him. She reached out to ruffle his scruffy head. “I’m okay,” she whispered to him. At the sound, the rest of the pack, which had been sleeping in various spots around the living room, scrambled awake and crowded around the couch, demanding to be petted or at least noticed. “It’s okay, babies,” she told them. “Mama just had a bit of a night.” She pulled herself to her feet and made her way gingerly to the kitchen door to let them out into their pen. Nausea slopped around her insides in sickening waves. Bending over the food bowls to feed the dogs this morning was going to be a challenge. She walked a fine line as it was; excesses like last night’s were a strain on organs already battered by daily infusions of alcohol, according to Maggie, who warned of diseases painful and ugly. But facing the world without the edge taken off was impossible. It had been ever since Grady was taken to jail. She sat at the kitchen table and rested her swirling head in her hands.

  FOR HER IT HAD ALL BEGUN with Grady. That was the irony of it. He had made her the person she was. He’d made her weird. Or, if you were listening to Maggie and Li’l Bit, different and an outsider.

  She couldn’t remember a time when Grady wasn’t a bigger-than-life figure in Charles Valley. He’d been sent off to private school from the day Miss Myrtis realized that the teachers in the public kindergarten were not willing to discipline the Garrison heir. A kicking and screaming Grady was delivered over his father’s protests to a hard-nosed private school, where the staff understood that Miss Myrtis wanted her son to learn to sink or swim on his own. For the next eight years, until he was finally packed off to the first of three military academies, Grady Garrison had the shit kicked out of him on a daily basis. But the kids in Charles Valley, seeing the pony his daddy bought him as compensation and hearing about wonders like Grady’s swimming pool, never realized what their prince was enduring.

  They ran into him at Sunday school, where Grady was a fat scowling presence who never learned even the shortest Bible verse assigned to him. On the rare occasions when he was available to play with the locals, he was mean and lordly. Everyone knew one day he would step into his father’s ventilated Florsheims. It would be Grady who was the county’s largest employer. He would put judges on the bench and representatives in the state capitol, and no state senator he objected to would ever wind up in Washington. He would have a monthly lunch date with the governor. He would entertain presidents, if they were Republican and conservative. And Grady would be rich; al
l the children knew that. The Garrison money was a fact of their lives and a source of local pride. Everyone knew how the family had outfoxed the Yankees after the Civil War and kept their fortune out of the jaws of Reconstruction.

  The truth was not quite as romantic as the legend. In fact, if the South had won its Glorious Cause, the Garrisons might well have been tried for treason. At the first sign of trouble in the years before the Civil War, they had taken all their money out of the South and quietly invested it in northern factories that fed the Union war machine. After the war was lost, they invested closer to home again as soon as the climate was safe. Several decades later they plowed everything into the burgeoning Georgia fabric mills. The resulting millions had been the basis of a fortune that was the stuff of folklore in Charles Valley.

  People said it was a good thing that Mr. Dalt was so rich. The rumor was it had cost him a new school library to get Grady through his fancy middle school. Two of the three military academies Grady attended refused to be bought off and bounced him during his sophomore year; no one was quite sure why.

  Miss Myrtis, meanwhile, was trying to plan his vacations for maximum enrichment. As a child he went to summer camps designed to foster self-reliance or cultural enlightenment. As an adolescent he was forced to volunteer on an archaeological dig in a desert somewhere in the Middle East.

  From what folks at home could see, none of it did him much good. He was only in Charles Valley a few weeks out of the year, for which most people were profoundly grateful. Grady had a taste for redneck company. His most loyal follower (friend would have been too strong a word) was a seventh-grade dropout named John Merrick. When they hooked up the stories started to fly, about black families being paid off after drunken shooting sprees in colored town, and a trailer-park princess who was set up for life after having been subjected to the attentions of Grady and his sidekick. They said Miss Myrtis was mad enough to let Grady stew in his own juice for that one. But Mr. Dalt bought a brand-new home for the girl and her sister in a neighboring state, where the enterprising ladies soon established a successful house of ill repute.