by Karen White
People gravitated back to the kitchen and the food as Sam came over and handed Joe a beer. “You’re going to need this.” He shook his head, his eyes following his wife’s laborious process up the stairs. “Did I mention I was wanting a boy?”
Joe took the beer, and they clinked the bottles together as Maddie joined them. “Nothing’s wrong with girls, Uncle Sam. Just Sarah Frances. She’s retarded.”
Joe gave her a warning look that she ignored. Smiling brightly at her father, she said, “Can I have a beer?”
“Last time I checked, you were only seventeen. If my math is right, that would mean you have about four years to go before you can drink. And that’s about a decade before you’re allowed to date.” Ignoring her scowl, he turned to Suzanne. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just a Coke, please.”
“What kind?”
She stared at him with a questioning look, wondering if Southerners really did have their own language. “A Coke.”
“We’ve got orange, root beer, cherry, Diet Coke, regular, and Mountain Dew. Which kind do you want?”
“A Coke.” She smiled, defying him to defend something as backward as giving every soft drink in the world the same brand name.
Raising an eyebrow, he left. Suzanne dug in her backpack for her Hasselblad and pulled it out. Handing it to Maddie, she said, “Here. You can use this to take pictures of the party. Just take candid ones and then we’ll develop them and examine them closely for strengths and weaknesses.”
As if touching something rare and precious, Maddie took the camera. “You’re going to let me use your camera?”
Suzanne shrugged. “I figure there’s not a lot you don’t know about when it comes to using one, so you might as well. Then I can use both hands to eat.”
“Which lens are you using?”
“The CB one-sixty. It has real sensitive focusing, so you don’t need to manipulate it that much. Oh, and here’s the flash attachment if you need it. Now go see what you can do.”
Smiling broadly, Maddie said, “I will. Just you wait.”
To Suzanne’s amazement, Maddie headed up the stairs in the direction Cassie and Sarah Frances had gone.
“This will be interesting.”
Forgetting that Sam was standing there, she was startled at his voice. “Yeah, well, I guess it’s a sister thing. Always wanting to see the worst of each other.”
Joe approached with a Coke for Suzanne and overheard her remark. “It’s amazing, really. The girls fight like cats. But when they need each other, they circle around the wounded, armed to the teeth and ready to defend. You have to see it to believe it.”
Sam took a swig from his beer. “Sort of like Cassie and Harriet were.”
Joe shook his head slowly and stared down at his bottle. “Ain’t that the truth!”
Before she could tell herself to keep her mouth shut, Suzanne said, “What did Knoxie mean about you dumping Cassie to marry Harriet? That must have gone over well.”
Sam laughed, choking on his beer, while Joe looked at her with a strangled expression. “Well, it wasn’t that way exactly.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “We were all young and stupid, and certainly in no way mature enough to tell Cassie I wanted to marry Harriet instead of her. I even went to an engagement party with Cassie the day before Harriet and I eloped.” He shook his head. “I can’t say I handled it the best way possible, but it worked out in the end.”
Suzanne cradled her Coke can between her hands, feeling the cold condensation, and tried to picture the sweet-faced Harriet running off with her sister’s fiancé. She couldn’t. Nor could she picture Cassie and Joe together. “I’m glad you think so. But I heard that it sent Cassie into exile to New York for fifteen years. Must have been a lot harder for her to see that it was for the best.”
Joe gave her a quelling look and was thankfully interrupted by Sam. “Suzanne, I wanted to let you know that I’m having an outdoor Jacuzzi delivered sometime tomorrow afternoon. Just didn’t want you to be surprised when all the workmen showed up to deliver and install it.” He sent her an innocent grin. “And you two are more than welcome to use it whenever you want.”
Suzanne flushed as her and Joe’s words tripped all over themselves, both making excuses why that would never happen, while Sam just nodded and smiled as if they were talking about what they had for lunch.
Spotting the approach of Mrs. Crandall, flanked by a Sedgewick twin on each side, Joe tugged on Suzanne’s arm. “Come on, Lucinda made some of her fried chicken and famous pecan pie. Let’s go get some plates.”
Sam moved in front of them. “I’ll run interference.”
With a big smile, he turned to face the elderly ladies as Joe and Suzanne made their escape to the small kitchen at the back of the house. Bright yellow chintz curtains hung at the windows, and matching yellow gingham seat covers sat on each chair. Lined up at the sink were six plastic cups, each with an initial on it, and the refrigerator wore a patchwork of brightly colored art projects. But the single object in the kitchen that marked ownership like a signature was a large ceramic plate hung over the sliding glass door. On it were five sets of handprints, each dipped in a different color of paint, ringing the outside rim. In the middle were the words “Happy Mother’s Day.”
It was as if Suzanne had stepped onto another planet. She could see Harriet Warner preparing meals, helping with homework, and feeding babies in the wooden high chair in the corner. Suzanne shrugged, as if being forced to wear a coat that didn’t fit, and turned away.
She recognized the table from Maddie’s photograph, but now every inch of its surface was covered with plates of food. She saw the lasagna and the garlic bread next to the fried chicken and collard greens, and her stomach rumbled. Joe handed her a paper plate, and she began to fill it.
Ed Farrell was already at the table, holding two heaping plates of food. He smiled at her as he took another huge helping of lasagna and dumped it on top of the fried okra on his plate. “I bet you never saw anything so good in your life, now, have you?”
“I certainly haven’t. Nothing so eclectic anyway.” She moved down the table and took a piece of corn bread. Looking up, she saw Cassie enter with her arm around a disgruntled Sarah Frances. Maddie poked her head between the two of them and said something that made her sister and aunt turn around and laugh. A flash erupted as Maddie snapped the picture.
Ed reached over and dumped a spoonful of something on Suzanne’s plate. She looked up, surprised.
He winked. “It’s my mama’s fried green tomatoes. She doesn’t cook so much anymore, but I used her recipe. Let me know what you think.”
“Oh. Thanks. I will.” She looked down at what looked like unripened tomatoes covered in a thick batter. It actually looked pretty good.
“And try some of these, too.” Another spoonful of what appeared to be beans was placed on her plate.
She looked at them quizzically. “What are those?”
He tucked his chin into his neck as if he were being confronted by an alien with three heads. “You’re not from around here, are you? Those are black-eyed peas cooked in fatback. It sure is good.” He made the last word two syllables.
Frowning down at her plate, she said, “I’ll make sure I try them, too.”
Leaning down to whisper in her ear, Joe said, “See? I told you we would make a Southerner out of you.”
Reaching across the table to grab a pat of butter, she said, “I didn’t say I liked them yet.” Juggling her Coke in one hand and her plate in the other, she followed Joe out the sliding glass door and into the soft summer night, whose edges were starting to wear a cool bite of autumn.
Tables had been set out, and several people were already milling about, chatting and eating. It was almost completely dark now, and children raced around the patio and the yard filled with tall pines and magnolias, chasing down fireflies. Maddie stood unnoticed among them, aiming Suzanne’s camera and taking pictures.
They sat at
the redwood picnic table, where Lucinda and Sheriff Hank Adams had already claimed spots. Suzanne noticed how their heads were bent together, and how they quickly sat up when they spotted Joe and Suzanne and greeted the newcomers.
Suzanne hesitated before placing her plate as far away from Sheriff Adams as possible, then quietly picked up her fork and began eating, concentrating on her food but not really tasting it, and not daring to look up or say anything that might bring attention to herself.
Joe’s eight-year-old son, Joey, ran up to the table and tapped Suzanne on the arm. “My plane’s broke. Can you fix it?”
She stared as if she’d just been handed a large insect. Joe stood to take it, but she raised her hand and took the plane. After examining it for a while she said, “Here, hold this wing. Now, see the slot here? Slide it in—no, wait—make sure the wings are facing the right direction, like this. See? Now stick them in like that.”
The wing slid home and Joey beamed. “Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome.”
She turned back to her food, but her gaze caught Joe’s for a brief moment before she focused her attention on her plate again.
“How’s crime in Walton, Hank?”
The sheriff looked up as if noticing Joe for the first time. “Same as always, Mayor. Mostly vandalism over at the high school. And assorted bra-and-panty sets showing up on Lady Liberty in the square.” He took a bite of pecan pie and closed his eyes in rapture before winking at Lucinda. It appeared the older woman might actually be blushing. “I know I only have to come to your house to get to the bottom of it when that happens.”
Joe narrowed his eyes. “Now, come on, Hank. Maddie isn’t responsible for that every time it happens.”
Hank lowered a glance at him without saying anything, before taking another bite of pecan pie. “Glad she’s continuing the family tradition. Guess it’s too hard now for Cassie to be climbing the statue in her condition. Plus, she’s now a respectable married lady and all.”
Suzanne heard Joe laughing, but her attention had been distracted by the scent of something so intoxicating she had to find out what it was. Leaving her plate and can on the table, she left Joe and the others to their conversation and went in search of the scent. Considering that all the flower beds were bare, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a single bloom.
She crossed the lawn where tiki torches had been set out to illuminate a stone path and found herself standing next to the house by the chimney, where vines holding flat, white trumpet-shaped flowers clung to the red bricks. The scent was nearly overwhelming this close and she couldn’t resist the urge to bury her face in one of the fragrant blooms.
“It was Harriet’s favorite flower.”
She started at the sound of Joe’s voice, then held out one of the blooms, nearly six inches across. “What’s this called?”
His voice sounded tight. “It’s a moonflower.”
“What a lovely name. It looks like a giant starfish with its five points. I wonder why they didn’t call them star flowers.”
He stood very close, but she didn’t step back. She was done with not standing her ground; stepping back seemed to give people the invitation to walk right over you.
“Because they only bloom at night. Nobody knows why, although they think a special moth is needed for pollination.”
She looked down at the enormous bloom, feeling almost drugged by the heavy scent. “I hope they don’t find out why. I like not knowing everything. Keeps life interesting.”
He was silent for a moment as they both listened to the distant sound of people talking and children shouting. A warm breeze stirred the vine, shaking loose the remaining rain droplets. “Sometimes. And sometimes it works to keep people away, doesn’t it?”
She glanced up, her mouth half-open with indignation, but she didn’t have time to argue because Joe bent down then and pressed his lips against hers. She wanted to pull away, but the moonflowers held her spellbound, and his lips tasted of pecans and warm skin. And need. A need so deep she could feel it as she began to kiss him back.
Her hands left the moonflowers and reached around him, and he pulled her to him, neither one of them aware anymore of who they were, or where they were, or why what they were doing was so impossibly wrong.
Joe pulled back, his expression that of a man who’d just stepped out of his front door and found himself in another city instead of his front lawn. They stared at each other for a long moment, both of them breathing heavily as if they’d just run around the block.
“That can’t happen again,” he said as if he really believed it.
She nodded, and then tried to pretend that they both weren’t thinking of when it could.
The flash from a camera startled them both momentarily, the brightness of it sealing the image of each other’s expression of surprise. Suzanne spotted Maddie and the camera at the same time she heard Sarah Frances. “Daddy, it’s time to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. . . .” Her voice trailed off as the teen turned the corner of the house and stopped in front of Suzanne and Joe, their arms still around each other.
As if Suzanne were suddenly electrically charged, Joe jumped away from her and began walking toward Sarah Frances, who immediately ran in the opposite direction. Without a backward glance, he ran after his daughter, calling her name.
Maddie shrugged. “Sorry.”
Suzanne stood with her fingertips to her lips, wondering what had just happened. Staring blankly at Maddie, she said, “I’ve got to go now.” She began walking away before stopping and fishing something out of the pocket of her long skirt. “This is for Sarah Frances. You can tell her it’s from you, if you like.”
She dumped the small wrapped box in Maddie’s hand, then left without waiting for Maddie to respond. She ran all the way home, seeking escape in her sparsely furnished room. She stripped off her clothes, barely pausing long enough to brush her teeth before throwing herself on the bed. She lay there for a long time, staring up at the ceiling and remembering how it had felt to belong to somebody, if just for a moment, and smelling the scent of the moonflower long after she’d drifted off to sleep.
Maddie clutched the small wrapped box in her hand looking for Sarah Frances until the wrapping paper began to get soft in the heat. She was about to give up before she recalled the place where she and Sarah Frances always ended up when the whole world seemed to be in cahoots against them. It was the one thing they had in common.
Maddie took shortcuts through backyards and driveways to her aunt Cassie’s house, the house her mama and aunt had grown up in, the house with the gazebo in the back where her daddy had proposed to both sisters—although at two different times.
She heard Sarah Frances’s sniffling before she reached the gazebo, but kept the camera hanging around her neck. As tempting as capturing on film her sister’s suffering was, dealing with the fallout wouldn’t be worth it. Besides, whether or not they liked it, they were a team, connected by the unimaginable. Although they had two other sisters, only Maddie and Sarah Frances had been old enough to really remember their mother, remember the way she smelled and what her voice sounded like. Old enough to miss more than just the memory of her.
“Go away,” Sarah Frances said through sobs.
Ignoring her, Maddie climbed the steps and sat on an adjacent bench. “I’m not going to take a picture if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She felt her sister’s stare in the darkened gazebo, the blue light of the moon its only illumination. Fireflies blinked on and off around them, reminding Maddie of happier summers: summers before her world had been permanently upended.
“I want you to rip out the film and burn it.” Sarah Frances hiccupped loudly.
Maddie rested her hands on the camera, feeling protective. “I can’t do that. And it wouldn’t change anything anyway.”
Sarah Frances scooted over to the far side of her bench as if to create as much space as possible between her and Maddie. “You’re on her side, aren’t you? You th
ink that . . . that . . . woman with the fake hair and ugly clothes can just come in here and take over and make us all forget Mama. She doesn’t even like kids!”
Maddie wasn’t sure what to say at first. Yeah, she suspected that her daddy and Suzanne had taken a real shine to each other, but it had never occurred to her that Suzanne might want to take over anything, much less make them forget about their mother. She could even believe that Suzanne didn’t really have any plans at all except for moving on eventually. And maybe that momentum was something they all could use.
“You should get to know her better before you start jumping to conclusions. She’s actually kinda nice.” She remembered the wrapped box in her now very sweaty hands. “This is a birthday present for you from Suzanne.” She held up her hand.
Instead of taking it from Maddie, Sarah Frances crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. “I don’t want her blood money.”
Maddie rolled her eyes in the darkness, wondering if Sarah Frances needed to take a break from drama classes or Sunday school. Or maybe both. Maddie placed the box on the bench next to her, figuring she’d leave it in Sarah Frances’s room. Then her sister could decide what she wanted to do with it.
“Mama’s gone,” Maddie said quietly, feeling that hollowed-out place in the center of her chest and knowing that Sarah Frances had a matching one. “But Daddy’s not. And I think Mama would have wanted him to be happy.”
Sarah Frances jerked to a stand. “We make him happy, and that should be enough. She needs to go away and leave us alone. The sooner the better.”
Maddie stood, too, the camera banging against her chest. “But what happens when we’ve all grown up and moved out of the house? Who will sit on the porch with him then?”
She felt more than saw her sister fumbling around for words. “You don’t understand,” she shouted before bounding down the steps of the gazebo and racing across the lawn in the moonlight.
But Maddie had seen her sister’s eyes reflected by the moon, seen the understanding that she herself was still struggling with: the understanding that their father was still a man, and that it was still possible to be lonely in a roomful of people.
