by Lisa Wingate
Maybe we do have a friend here after all.
“Mr. Riggs, if you have nothingk else that must be done, see to the branch that has fallen in the yardt duringk the night,” the woman says, “before the children are goingk out.”
“Yes’m, Mrs. Pulnik.” His lips curve up at the edges, and he moves the broom a little as Mrs. Pulnik starts up the stairs, but he doesn’t sweep anything.
Camellia looks back over her shoulder, and he winks at her. The wink makes me think of Briny, so maybe I do like Mr. Riggs a little bit.
Upstairs, Mrs. Pulnik takes us to the laundry room and gives us some things off a pile. She calls them playclothes, but they’re really not much more than rags. She tells us to get ourselves dressed and use the bathroom, and we do, and breakfast looks a lot like the supper they gave us last night after the bath—a little scoop of cornmeal mush. We’re late getting to the table. The other kids have already gone to play. After we’ve scraped our bowls clean, we’re told to get outside too and not to try leaving the backyard and the churchyard, or else.
“Andt you will not be goingk near to the fence.” Mrs. Pulnik grabs Camellia’s arm and Lark’s before we can make it through the door. She leans over us with her round cheeks red and sweat shiny. “A boy tunneledt underneat yesterday. Mrs. Murphy has given him the closet. To be given the closet is very, very bat. In the closet, it is dark. Do you understandt?”
“Yes’m,” I croak out, picking up Gabby and reaching for Lark to get her away. She’s standing still as a stump, not a thing moving but the big old tears dripping down her cheeks. “I’ll make sure they mind the rules till we can go see our mama and daddy.”
Mrs. Pulnik’s big lips push together and curl. “Goot,” she says. “This is a wise choice for you. All of you.”
“Yes’m.”
We get out the door quick as we can. The sun feels like heaven, and the sky stretches out big between the poplars and maples, and the bare dirt at the bottom of the steps is cool and soft. Safe. I close my eyes and listen to the leaves talking and the birds singing their morning songs. I pick out their voices, one by one, Carolina wren, redbird, house finch. The same birds that were there yesterday morning when I woke up on our little shantyboat.
The little girls grab on to my dress, and Gabby hitches himself back against my arms, trying to get down, and Camellia complains that we’re just standing there. I open my eyes, and she’s looking at the tall black iron fence that circles the yard. Honeysuckle and prickly holly and azaleas grow thick over most of it, higher than our heads. There’s only one gate that I can see, and it goes to the playground behind the run-down church house next door. That’s got more of the same fence around it too.
Camellia’s way too big to squeeze under, but she looks like she’s searching for the best spot to try it.
“Let’s go over on the swings at least,” she whines. “We can watch the road from there…for when Briny comes to get us.”
We move across the yard, Gabion in my arms and my sisters in a tight knot behind me, even Camellia, who usually picks a fight at every school we go to quicker than you can say spit. The kids eyeball us because we’re new. We pretend we don’t notice it. We’re usually good at this game—don’t act too friendly; look out for each other; let them know that if they mess with one of you, they’d better be able to whip the bunch of you. But this time it’s different. We don’t know the rules in this place. There’s no teacher around watching. There’s not a grown-up in sight. Nobody but kids, all stopping their games of jump rope and Red Rover to stare at us.
I don’t see the little girl who came with us from the river yesterday. Her baby brother—the one Miss Tann named Stevie—sits in the dirt with a tin truck that’s missing all its paint and one wheel.
“Where’s your sister?” I squat down beside him, Gabion’s weight putting me off balance so that I have to brace a hand on the ground to keep from falling over.
Stevie’s shoulders lift and fall, and his big brown eyes turn watery.
“You can come with us,” I tell him.
Camellia grumbles, “He ain’t our problem.”
I tell her to hush.
Stevie rolls a pouty lip and nods and lifts both arms. There’s a big bite mark on one of them, and I wonder who did it. I scoop him up and push myself back to my feet. He’s older than Gabion, but he weighs about the same. He’s a skinny little thing.
Two girls playing with dented tin dishes look our way. They’ve raked the old dead leaves and made a pretending spot in the shade of the well house, like Camellia and I do in the woods sometimes. “You wanna play?” one of them asks.
“Bugger off,” Camellia snaps. “We ain’t got time. We’re goin’ over to the churchyard to watch for our daddy.”
“You hadn’t oughta.” The girls turn back to their game, and we move on along.
At the gate to the churchyard, a big boy pops out from behind the hollies. Now I see they’ve got a tunneled-out spot in the bushes. There’s four or five of them back there with a deck of cards. One’s carving a spear with his pocketknife. He gives me a squinty look and tests the sharp point with his finger.
The big redheaded boy stands in the gate, his arms crossed over his chest. “You come down here,” he says, like he’s in charge of me. “They can go over and play.” It’s clear enough what he means. He wants me to clamber up under the bushes with the four of them. Otherwise my brother and my sisters can’t go in the churchyard.
My face turns hot. I feel the blood pouring in. What’s he got in mind?
Camellia says what’s just gone through my head. “We ain’t goin’ no place with you.” She braces her feet apart and pokes her chin out about even with his chest. “You ain’t the boss of us.”
“I ain’t talkin’ to you, mudpuppy. You’re hound-dog ugly. Anybody ever tell you that? I’m talkin’ to your pretty sister here.”
Camellia’s eyes bug out. She’s on her way to getting full-out mad. “Ain’t ugly as you, carrothead. Your mama cry when you was born? Bet she did!”
I hand Gabby over to Fern. Little Stevie doesn’t want to turn loose. His arms stay locked tight around my neck. If we’re gonna have a fight, I don’t need a baby hanging on me. The redheaded boy is probably more than Camellia and me can handle, and if his chums come out of there, we’re in real trouble. There’s still no workers anyplace in sight, and one of those ugly mugs has a knife.
The redhead’s nostrils flare, and he uncrosses his arms. Here it comes. Camellia’s put in a bid we can’t pay this time. The boy stands at least a half foot taller than me, and I’m tall.
My mind runs like a squirrel on a spring day, jumping from branch to branch. Think. Think of something.
Always use your brains, Rill, Briny says in my mind, and you’ll find your way out of a scrape quicker’n anything.
“I got peppermints,” I blabber, and reach into the pocket of my borrowed dress. “You can have the whole bunch, but you gotta let us pass.”
The boy pulls his chin back and squints at me. “Where’d you get peppermints?”
“I ain’t a liar.” I can barely choke out the four words because Stevie’s hanging on to me so tight. “You gonna let us pass or not?”
“You gimme the peppermints.” The other rowdies are already shinnying out of their hidey-hole so they can grab their share.
“Those are ours!” Camellia argues.
“Be quiet.” I pull out the mints. They’re a little dirty from being stuck to my hand this morning, but I don’t reckon these boys care.
The redhead opens his fingers, and I dump the candy in. He lifts it up so close to his face, his eyes go crossed, and he looks even dumber than before. A slow, mean smile spreads his lips. He’s got a chipped tooth in front. “You get these from ol’ Riggs?”
I don’t want to bring trouble on the man from the basement. He’s the only one who’s been nice to us so far. “Ain’t your business.”
“He’s our friend.” Camellia can’t keep her mouth shu
t. Maybe she thinks it’ll scare the boys if they know the big man likes us.
But the redheaded boy just grins. He leans close to my ear, near enough that I can smell his stinky breath and feel his heat on my skin. He whispers, “Don’t let Riggs get you off by yourself. He ain’t the kind of friend you want.”
CHAPTER 11
Avery
Spanish moss drips from the trees, as delicately spun as the lace on a bridal veil. A blue heron launches itself from the salt marsh, disturbed by the passage of my car. It flies clumsily at first, as if it needs a moment to become at home in the air, to find its wings. It beats hard, then finally floats into the distance, in no hurry to be earthbound again.
I know the feeling. For two weeks, I’ve been trying to sneak away and make the drive to Edisto Island. Between the meetings and press ops that were already scheduled and an unexpected complication with Dad’s health, it’s been impossible.
I’ve spent the last six days in doctors’ offices, holding my mother’s hand as we tried to discern why, when the cancer and intestinal bleeding were supposed to have been cured by the surgery, Dad was once again anemic and so weak he could barely stay on his feet. After endless tests, we think the cause has been found. The solution was simple—a laparoscopic surgery to fuse broken blood vessels in his digestive system, a problem unrelated to the cancer. Outpatient. Quick and easy.
Except nothing is simple when you’re trying to hide from the whole world, and Dad insists on not telling anyone he has experienced a minor setback in his health. Leslie is completely onboard with that. She’s reporting that my father had a nasty case of food poisoning; he’ll be back to his regularly scheduled activities in a few days.
My eldest sister, Missy, stepped in to handle appearances at a couple of charity events that couldn’t be canceled. “You look exhausted, Aves,” she said. “Why don’t you get away for a little while, since Leslie has pretty much cleared the schedule anyway? Go see Elliot. Allison and I can keep an eye on things at Drayden Hill.”
“Thanks…but…Well, you’re sure?”
“Go. Talk wedding plans. Maybe you can convince him to knuckle under to the mom pressure.”
I didn’t tell her that, other than a few rushed conversations, Elliot and I haven’t even discussed wedding ideas. We have too much else going on. “Elliot had to fly to Milan to meet with a client, but I think I’ll go down to the old place on Edisto. Has anyone been there lately?”
“Scott and I took the kids for a few days…oh…I guess it was last spring. The housekeeping service keeps the place in such great shape. It should be all ready for you. Go have a little vacay.”
I was packing a suitcase almost before she could tell me to say hello to the beach for her. On the way out of town, I paid a long-overdue visit to May Crandall’s nursing home. An attendant there told me May had been hospitalized with a respiratory infection. The attendant didn’t know how serious it was or when to expect May back.
Which means that the mysterious packet of papers on Edisto is my one possible lead, at least for now. Trent Turner won’t take my phone calls. Period. My only option is to confront him in person. The envelope he’s holding has begun to haunt my every waking moment. I’m getting a little obsessed, making up stories in which he plays different parts in each scene. Sometimes he’s a blackmailer who has discovered a horrible truth about my family and sold the information to my father’s opponents; that’s why he won’t answer my calls. Other times, he’s the man in May Crandall’s photograph. The pregnant woman he’s holding close is my grandmother, and she had some sort of hidden life before she married my grandfather. A teenage love affair. A scandal that’s been covered up for generations.
She gave the baby away, and it’s been living somewhere all this time. Now our dispossessed heir wants a fair share of the family money, or else.
All my scenarios seem crazy, but they’re not completely unfounded. I’ve learned things from reading between the lines in my grandmother’s appointment books. My dragonfly bracelet has some sort of deeper history on Edisto. A lovely gift for a lovely day on Edisto, the entry read. Just us.
It’s the just us part that niggles at me. Only a page before, she’d noted receiving a letter from my grandfather, who had taken the children fishing in the mountains for the week.
Just us…
Who? Who was buying gifts for her on Edisto in 1966?
My grandmother often came here alone over the years, but many times she wasn’t alone after she arrived on the island. That much was obvious from her daybooks.
Could she have been having an affair?
My stomach roils as the Dawhoo Bridge rises ahead. That can’t be the case. Despite the pressure of a life lived in public, my family has always been known for rock-solid marriages. My grandmother loved my grandfather deeply. Aside from that, Grandma Judy is one of the most upright people I know. She’s a pillar of the community and a fixture at the Methodist church. She would never, ever keep a secret from the family.
Unless that secret is something that could hurt us.
And that’s exactly what scares me.
It’s also why I can’t have an envelope floating around heaven knows where with my grandmother’s name on it and some sort of clandestine information inside.
“Ready or not, here I come,” I whisper into the salt air. “What was it that you wanted with my grandmother, Trent Turner?”
While sitting in cars and doctors’ waiting rooms these past few weeks, I’ve tried researching Trent Turner, Sr., and Trent Turner, Jr., the grandfather and father of the Trent I talked to on the phone, who is Trent Turner III. I’ve looked for political connections, criminal records, or whatever might explain ties to my grandmother. I’ve used all my favorite prosecutor tricks. Unfortunately, there is nothing obvious. According to an obit from seven months ago in the Charleston paper, Trent Turner, Sr., was a lifelong resident of Charleston and Edisto Island and the owner of Turner Real Estate. Just an ordinary fellow. Plain and simple. His son, Trent Turner, Jr., is married and lives in Texas, where he owns a real estate agency.
Trent Turner III doesn’t seem to be anyone out of the ordinary either. He played basketball at Clemson and was pretty good at it. He was in the commercial real estate business until recently, mostly in New York. A local press release from a few months ago indicates he left the city behind to take over his grandfather’s business on Edisto.
Why, I can’t help but wonder, does a man who’s been brokering high-rises suddenly move to an out-of-the-way place like Edisto and start dealing in beach cottages and vacation rentals?
I’ll find out soon enough. I’ve looked up his work address. One way or another, I plan to leave the Turner Real Estate office with my grandmother’s envelope and all of its contents, whatever they may be.
Despite the nervousness that stirs inside me, Edisto begins to work its magic as I descend the island side of the bridge and continue along the highway, passing small, sea-weathered homes and a few businesses tucked among pines and live oaks. Overhead, the sky is a perfect shade of blue.
This place is still so much like I remember it. It has a peaceful, gracious, untraveled feel. There’s a reason the locals have nicknamed the island Edi-slow. The ancient oaks bow low over the road, as if seeking to shield it from the outside world. Moss-laden trees paint deep shade over the small SUV I’ve spirited away from the barn at Drayden Hill for the trip. The back roads on Edisto can be a little rugged, and beyond that, showing up in a BMW didn’t seem like a good idea considering that I’m wondering if the contents of the envelope have anything to do with blackmail.
The Turner Real Estate building is easy to find. It’s quaint but not necessarily impressive—the sort of place that’s happy to be just what it is, a seawater-blue vintage cottage on Jungle Road, just a couple blocks from water. Now that I’m here, it does look vaguely familiar, but as a kid, of course, I never had any reason to go inside.
As I park and cross the sand-sprinkled lot, I’m momentar
ily jealous of the man I’ve come here to find. I could work in a place like this. I could live here even. Just another day in paradise, every single morning. From not far away, laughter and beach sounds drift over. Colorful kites fly above the treetops, kept in the air by a steady sea breeze.
Two little girls run down the street, trailing long red ribbons on sticks. Three women pedal by on bicycles, laughing. Once again, I’m envious, and then I think, Why don’t I come here more often? Why don’t I ever call my sisters or my mother and say, “Hey, let’s just take off and go sit in the sun awhile. We could use some girl time, right?”
Why haven’t Elliot and I ever come here?
The answer tastes bitter, so I don’t chew on it very long. Our schedules are always filled with other things. That’s why.
Who chooses the schedules we keep? We do, I guess.
Although, so often it seems as if there isn’t any choice. If we aren’t constantly slapping new paint on all the ramparts, the wind and the weather will sneak in and erode the accomplishments of a dozen previous generations of the family. The good life demands a lot of maintenance.
Walking up the porch steps to Turner Real Estate, I grab a fortifying breath. The sign says COME ON IN. WE’RE OPEN….So I do. A jingling bell announces my entry, but there’s no one behind the counter.
The front room is a lobby area with colorful vinyl chairs lining its edges. A watercooler waits with paper cups. Racks display endless brochures. A popcorn machine reminds me that I’ve missed lunch. Beautiful photographs of the island line the walls. The base of the counter across the room is decorated with children’s artwork and photos of happy families posing in front of their new beach homes. The display randomly mixes past and present. Some of the black-and-whites appear to be from all the way back in the fifties. I stand and I scan them, looking for my grandmother. There’s no sign of her.
