by Karen White
Far away the sound of distant thunder rumbled in the sky, and I stared out the darkened window of my bedroom, feeling the storm brewing. For the first time in a long while, I thought of my childhood home and the sound of the wind blowing from the ocean to tease the house’s eaves and make them sing the mermaids’ songs. My father had taught me that so I’d never be afraid of storms. And until the day he’d died, I’d believed him.
Knowing I wouldn’t sleep, I sat down on the bed, keeping the jacket on my shoulders, and allowed myself to think of possibilities while I waited for the rain to come.
CHAPTER 4
The Piggly Wiggly bag crinkled at my feet as Lucy braked sharply in the early-morning Charleston traffic, and the loose front bumper—held in place by twine and a prayer—clattered against the front end of the car. The air conditioner, having breathed its last sometime the previous summer, gasped out only warm air. A sheen of perspiration coated Lucy’s dark brown skin even though it was barely eight thirty in the morning. I didn’t bother looking into the mirror on the visor, knowing I looked similarly disheveled despite the extra time I’d spent dressing.
It was my fault we were late. I’d missed my bus because I’d realized too late that I couldn’t walk into Beaufain & Associates with Mr. Beaufain’s jacket draped over my arm and that I needed something to put it in. I’d run back inside the house to grab a grocery bag and had been waylaid by my mother wanting to know where the car was. Not having the time to get into an explanation or argument, I’d told her not to worry and then slammed out of the house again, for the first time in my life happy I didn’t own a cell phone.
“You’re not going to tell me what’s in the bag?” Lucy asked for the second time. We’d known each other since we were in diapers growing up on Edisto and had never not shared a secret. Until now.
“It’s just something I borrowed and need to give back,” I mumbled, thinking of how I’d finally fallen asleep just as dawn cracked open the sky, Mr. Beaufain’s jacket tucked firmly around my shoulders.
“Um-hmm,” she said, her chin jutting out to show me that she meant exactly the opposite.
She turned sharply into the lot behind the office building on Broad Street and parked, first lowering all four windows. The car had a better chance of melting from the inside than being stolen.
I slid my ID into the slot in the back door and let us in, the sound of a distant telephone ringing muted by the soft carpet. We stood for a moment allowing the air-conditioning to brush over us before silently going our separate ways—Lucy to the accounting department and me to client services.
I had just made it to my desk and was trying to figure out the best place to put the bag where it wouldn’t be noticed—having already decided to sneak into Mr. Beaufain’s office when he left for lunch to place it on his chair—when I heard my name spoken. It reminded me too much of the night before, when he’d called my name as I walked toward the ladies’ room at Pete’s. I pretended to fumble with the bag under my desk until I composed myself.
“Eleanor,” Mr. Beaufain said again. Even though he’d told me his first name, I couldn’t see him as anything but Mr. Beaufain of the dark suits and murmured conversations with important clients.
I stood suddenly, clipping my head on the edge of my desk. I briefly saw stars but was too mortified to cry out in pain or rub the spot, where I was sure I’d have a bruise. I forced myself to meet his eyes as if I hadn’t been in his car the night before telling him about my father or Edisto, as if I hadn’t slept with his coat around my shoulders. “Yes?”
His gray eyes were dark and shuttered, making it easier for me to pretend that this man and the one from the previous night were separate. “After you get settled, can you come to my office, please?”
I nodded, my head hurting from the bump. “Yes. Just give me a few minutes, if that’s all right.”
His gaze flickered over my face with a look of concern before he curtly nodded and retreated to his large office, which faced Broad Street. I felt the interested gaze of his personal secretary, Kay Tetley, as she sat perched at her big mahogany desk pretending to open mail.
I turned on my computer and made a show of storing my purse in a drawer and stacking my to-do pile in the middle of my desk next to my Geechee Girl mug—a gift from Lucy—before retrieving the Piggly Wiggly bag and heading to Mr. Beaufain’s office. I’d resisted the urge to freshen my lipstick, even though my lips felt dry and cracked, not wanting Kay’s interest to be piqued any further. The crinkling grocery bag was enough.
He stood facing his window near the bank of computers that were never shut down, a cup of coffee steaming in his hand. He wore a black suit, even in this heat, but the cuffs of his shirt were starched bright white, a gold cuff link reflecting the light. The office itself retained the charm of the old building, which had once been a grand house and had then been converted to offices for Beaufain & Associates by his great-grandfather.
Prior to this visit, I’d been in his office only briefly to deliver documents. The tall ceilings were edged in egg-and-dart molding, and an antique chandelier surrounded by an elaborate plaster medallion dangled above the center of the room. Elegant paintings decorated the walls, including a watercolor by local artist Mary Whyte. I recognized it from an exhibition I’d seen at the Gibbes Museum, remembering the way I’d wondered how it would feel to be able to own such an object of beauty, to stare at it anytime you wanted.
The floors in here were the original heart pine, with a large Persian rug done in deep hues of burgundy and navy covering the center of the room. Only one framed photograph sat on his desk. Its back was to me, but I knew it held the picture of a brightly smiling young girl. My lips twitched as I remembered the nickname her father called her. Peanut.
The room smelled of books and furniture polish and the faint scent that I recognized from his jacket. I found myself blushing at the thought and was glad he couldn’t see me.
“Beethoven’s Pathétique. That’s what you were playing last night when you thought nobody was there.” He turned to face me. “Am I right?”
Too surprised to be embarrassed, I nodded. “I’m surprised you recognized it. I’m a little rusty on my classical repertoire.”
He took a sip from his mug as his eyes assessed me. “Would you like some coffee?” He indicated a silver coffee service on a tray on an antique sideboard on the far wall.
I desperately needed the caffeine but was too nervous to be able to pour and drink without spilling something. “No, but thank you.”
He watched me for a moment before pointing to the leather armchair on the other side of his desk. “Please, sit down.” He waited for me to sit, then said, “I’m hoping your brother-in-law made it to work on time?”
It took a moment for me to figure out what he was referring to, and then I remembered the car I’d driven to Pete’s and how Mr. Beaufain said he’d make sure it was brought back in time for Glen to get to work. There’d been no calls to the office from home, so I assumed everything had worked out. “Yes. Thank you. For everything,” I added hastily.
As if he were as eager to move from the subject as I was, he cleared his throat. “I mentioned to you last night the possibility of extra work.”
Slowly I said, “I’d like to hear more, but I’m afraid my . . . obligations at home might make adding hours to my work schedule not possible.”
“Caring for your sister, you mean?”
I nodded. “My brother-in-law works long hours and my mother has really bad arthritis so that it’s difficult to do things for Eve. I appreciate the flexibility that you’ve given me here.” I felt a moment of panic as I thought that the reason why he was offering me another job was because of this very thing, that he wanted someone more reliable in my current job, someone who could work longer hours when necessary and who didn’t need to leave sometimes in the middle of the day.
He interrupted my thoughts.
“I don’t want to add to your burden. I simply thought perhaps that an arrangement could be mutually beneficial. I wouldn’t have to worry about my great-aunt being all alone all the time, and you’d have an extra source of income.”
My gaze dropped to my hands. My voice was barely above a whisper, but I needed to say it. “Would you have thought of me for this position if you hadn’t seen me at the bar last night?”
Gently, he said, “Let’s call it serendipity. I became aware last night that my aunt wished to return to her home right before I ran into you. And then I heard you play.”
I looked up. His face was serious, his eyes measuring.
“My great-aunts—my grandmother’s sisters—were great musicians.” He paused. “My aunt Helena is grieving right now. Her lifelong companion, her sister, has died, and she’ll be returning to the house they shared alone. I’ll be there as much as I can, and I’ll have twenty-four-hour nursing care for her, but I was hoping for something . . . more.”
“But why me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Because I see how you care for your sister, how responsible you are not just for her well-being but also for the work you do here. And when I saw you last night . . .” He stopped and moved to the sideboard to pour himself another cup of coffee. He moved with a taut grace, and I noticed how tall he was and how measured his movements, as if he was wound tightly and ready to spring. He focused on stirring his cup. “I’d pay you double the hourly rate of what I pay you here, and I’d start with five hours a week—hours of your choosing—plus I’d pay for the time it takes to get there and back. And you’d have a car for your exclusive use to drive to Edisto—or anywhere else.”
He faced me and I saw a flicker in his eyes, making me think that there was something he was holding back.
“What’s your aunt’s last name? I might recognize it.”
“Szarka. It’s Hungarian. They moved here from Hungary.” His steady gaze held mine, almost like a dare.
I knew the name, of course. It was the last name of the two old ladies who lived in the big white house on the wide Steamboat Creek—although they would have only been in their sixties and seventies when I lived on Edisto. They’d seemed old to us children, with their graying hair contained in tight buns and their unfashionable long skirts and thick accents. They were everywhere, it seemed, volunteering at shrimp festivals and house tours, organizing coat collections in the winter and school supply donations in the fall. And they’d always had the best candy at Halloween. I was ashamed to admit that we children had mimicked their accents and strange, foreign ways, but Eve and I were always the first in line at their door on Halloween.
“Yes. I remember them. And there was a boy. . . .” I stopped, my eyes widening in recognition. I remembered the boy I’d seen only from afar, sailing his paper airplanes down into the creek from the Steamboat Landing dock. I’d found one on the bank of the creek once. I was amazed at the myriad folds and tucks in the single piece of paper. It must have taken hours to make, and I remembered thinking how each fold contained an unanswered prayer or an unspoken dream, all of which had been too heavy to keep it aloft.
He moved to stand in front of me, leaning against his desk, his arms folded. “My mother died when I was nine, and my father sent me to Edisto during the summers to get me out of his hair, I suspect.”
“I think I saw you a few times,” I said carefully. But I didn’t tell him how Eve would notice him around town or at church with his aunts and would dismiss him because he was a town boy from off island who didn’t know how to set a crab trap. At least in the beginning, before Eve noticed boys and the boys started noticing her. I’d ignored him, too, but I’d never forgotten that paper airplane or its precise, delicate folds, which a boy had turned into wings. “You never came out to play.”
“As an only child, I was what you would call overprotected. I wasn’t allowed to go down to the beach or hang around with the island children. But my aunts were good to me, and I loved the island.”
“Szarka,” I said out loud for the first time, the hard consonants odd against my tongue. I knew that was their name, of course, although Eve and our friends had always simply referred to them as the “old ladies in the big house.” But the name sounded familiar for another reason, too, as if I’d heard the name recently but couldn’t remember where. “I’m curious, though. How did they end up on Edisto?”
He took a sip of coffee. “The house had belonged to my father’s family, but my grandfather gave it to my aunts to live in when they came here from Hungary during the war. They wanted to be near family—but not too near—and Edisto seemed to be a good spot.”
“I remember your aunts,” I said. “They were always kind to us children, although I can’t say we returned the favor.”
He nodded, his eyes expectant, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I cleared my throat. “Your aunt Helena is the surviving aunt. What was her sister’s name?”
“Bernadett.”
I felt somehow ashamed, as if I should have known their first names—should have known them as individuals with names and distinct personalities, who had been doting aunts to a lonely little boy. I frowned, thinking. “You said that Helena was in the hospital following Bernadett’s death. Were they both ill?”
Mr. Beaufain pushed away from his desk and returned to the window, studying the traffic on Broad Street. “Bernadett died in her sleep. And Aunt Helena . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t think she wanted to live without her sister. She didn’t eat or drink anything, and waited to die. I was lucky that I discovered them when I did.”
I wanted him to face me again so I could look into his eyes. Maybe then I could see what it was he wasn’t telling me. I fidgeted, the bag with the jacket crinkling at my feet, where I’d placed it on the floor beside my chair. “I need to speak with my mother and my sister, to see if this might work. . . .” My voice drifted away; I was unsure what else I should say.
Without turning around he said, “They have a grand piano, a 1926 Mason and Hamlin. You could play it as often as you’d like. Aunt Helena would like that. And I know she would enjoy your company.”
I felt a small stirring in my chest again, a hard, dead thing startled into taking a breath. I waited a moment before I answered. “Can I let you know tomorrow? I really do need to discuss it with my mother and sister.”
“Of course. And if you need to reduce the hours or make them more, that’s fine. This sort of thing has to be a flexible arrangement. For all of us.”
I thought again of the piano, a Mason & Hamlin, like the one my mother had sold, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he thought he needed to bribe me with it.
“We’ll talk tomorrow, then.”
I stood suddenly, realizing that I was being dismissed. “Yes. And thank you.” I felt awkward, not sure if I was thanking him for the opportunity or for driving me home. I didn’t want to elaborate.
I headed out of his office, sensing his gray eyes following me until I’d closed the door, belatedly realizing that I’d left his jacket in a heap inside a Piggly Wiggly bag on the floor. I stared at the closed door to his office for a moment, telling myself I would tell him no regardless of what my mother and Eve said.
But I was unable to erase from my mind the image of a young boy on the dock sailing paper airplanes up into the air, weaving an invisible ribbon in the wide sky, then watching them crash into the water.
CHAPTER 5
Eve
I knew Eleanor was home even before I heard her key turn the latch. Ever since I can remember, my sister has been an extension of me, a disembodied limb that I have no control over. But she belongs to me, just the same. When she was born, Daddy put that tiny baby in my arms and said she was mine. Mine to love and take care of. I don’t think he ever imagined things turning out the way they did.
“Mama?” Eleanor stood inside the door, bringing with her the scent of rain.
I looked up from the dining table, where I’d been sewing row upon row of endless sequins on a majorette costume for a sixteen-year-old. Mama’s arthritis had gotten too bad to do the fine work, but I’d surprised us both by taking over with stitches as straight and precise as hers had once been.
“She’s resting,” I said, watching Eleanor slide out of her wet shoes, the blue pumps that had been polished so many times that they rubbed the inside of her ankles blue. “And Glen’s working late again.”
I watched her closely. I could read her face as if it were my own, but there was something in her expression now that I didn’t recognize, something that reminded me of a long-ago birthday when she’d handed me a present and told me what was inside because she couldn’t stand waiting any longer for me to open it.
She walked over to the table and turned on the overhead light. I hadn’t noticed how dark it had grown outside or how I’d been straining my eyes. I blinked in the glare. “Thanks. Mama said to go ahead and start supper when you got home. She’ll need to take her medicine when she gets up.”
Eleanor nodded without seeming to really hear me, a nearly imperceptible humming zinging off her skin and scalding me like a spray of boiling water. As an afterthought, she turned to me. “I forgot to go to the store on the way home. I guess we’ll do leftovers.”
Her gaze strayed down to the majorette costume, to the tiny silver stars stitched within the sea of sequins. “You’re as good as Mama.” Her short, clipped nail touched one of the stars, making it move and shimmer in the overhead light.
“I’m trying,” I said. I didn’t want praise from her, from the baby who’d been given to me to protect but who’d forgotten our decreed roles along the way.
She nodded as she turned away to disappear into the kitchen, and I soon heard the refrigerator door being opened and closed, followed by the banging of pans.
