Maureen said, her voice all sparkly, “Get me a vanilla iced doughnut and one with sprinkles on.” She winked at me. “Emma too. She’d probably like one.”
At that Donny looked so heated up I thought he’d blister. “I ain’t no delivery service. She can get her own damn doughnuts.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you!” I could sound sparkly too.
The Rainbow Café was to be my next stop anyway. Having me tag along was the last thing he wanted. He was out the door so fast I could have played cards on his coattail. That was my mother’s saying for someone who was beating a hasty retreat. I’ve always liked that image of someone moving so fast his coat flies up behind him flat and square as a table.
I caught up with Donny as he was stopping traffic so he could cross. He always did that: held his hand palm out and stopped an old Ford so worn-out it looked like it would have coughed to a stop anyway. I just skipped along with him.
“You get away, you hear!” he fumed, and quick-walked to the other side and into the Rainbow Café.
I waved to the Ford driver, who smiled at me, toothlessly.
Donny was standing in front of the baked-goods case, pointing and barking out his order to Wanda Wayans.
I went to the end of the soda counter, where Maud was making a milk shake, her hand jittering on the metal container.
“Want some?” She nodded at the machine. “Miss Isabel never can drink a whole one.”
Turning around, I saw Miss Isabel Barnett seated in one of the wooden booths at the rear. She was looking into a small silver compact and apparently applying lipstick. “I need to talk to her,” I said to Maud. “Thanks!”
“Do you mind if I sit down for a minute, Miss Isabel?”
She seemed really happy to see me. “Why, Emma Graham, just sit right down and tell me what you’ve been up to.”
As I slid into the booth I looked at what appeared to be a brand-new lipstick she was putting away and did not want to ask what she’d been up to. “Nothing much. But I need to ask you something: Do you remember last week we were talking about Morris and Imogen Slade’s baby, Fay?”
First, she looked a little puzzled.
“The Slades were in La Porte one day, you remember; it was over twenty years ago, and you told me you saw the baby in her carriage?”
Her face grew tight with thinking, as if she were flinging her memory back twenty years. “Yes! The poor little thing, well it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old when I saw it-”
My mouth seldom fell open in surprise. But now it did. “A few weeks? But, Miss Isabel, the time we were talking about was when the baby was four months old!”
Miss Isabel Barnett firmly shook her head. “Oh no, Emma, it couldn’t have been. That baby weighed so little and was so small, when that baby was born, the hospital had to keep it in an incubator for three weeks. The poor thing hadn’t been long out, well, not more than a couple weeks, anyway.”
“And you said it had that condition, Down’s disease, or something?”
Her eyebrows rose. “You mean the Slade baby? Oh, I don’t think so.”
I just stared. Where had she come by all of this information, half of it conflicting with what she’d told me before? “Miss Isabel, are you sure we’re talking about the same baby?”
She sipped her milk shake and frowned.
I don’t know why I had expected her to remember back twenty years. I could hardly remember back twenty days, and I was a lot younger than Miss Isabel Barnett, whose mind was probably completely tired out from remembering things.
She hadn’t seen Fay Slade at all.
“Thanks, Miss Isabel. I’ve got to be getting back.”
I flew out of the Rainbow so fast you could have played cards on my coattail.
And I didn’t even know where I was running to. I stopped to take a breath. The baby hadn’t been seen by anyone. So my theory could be right—that the kidnapping had been staged. Gloria Spiker and Prunella Rice: they’d both probably been paid off. They both had to be in on it because they’d made sure the stories they told about the call were the same. Probably they’d practiced what they’d tell the police if they were asked. The Sheriff Mooma back then (Donny’s uncle) was probably bought off by Imogen Woodruff’s rich father. Paid not to investigate. Because there’d been no kidnapping.
Of course, I had to remind myself this was just a theory—that the baby hadn’t been at the Belle Ruin at all. If so, what had happened to her that they didn’t want people knowing about ? Did they lose her? Did they leave her?
Now, had she come back? was she the Girl?
My feet launched me toward the Conservative offices. I guess they thought Mr. Gumbrel would be a good person to talk to, since he had a kind of investigative mind. I pounded up the old wooden staircase and noticed for the first time the worn-away area in the center of each step, where there was a depression and the oak was worn nearly white. Imagine the number of feet it would take to wear away wood.
“Emma! You finish next week’s installment?”
No more than I had since the last time he’d asked. “Not quite. But there’s something I want to tell you about the alleged”—I emphasized that—“kidnapping.” I went on to report my conversation with Prunella Rice and the conclusion I’d drawn.
Mr. Gumbrel had leaned back in his swivel chair, his glasses perched up on his head, twiddling his thumbs over his round stomach. “My lord!” he said. “I’ll be a monkey’s—so you think the two of them, the Spiker girl and this Prunella Rice, were in it together?”
“Not that they were the main players, definitely not. The main ones had to be the family. If Mr. Woodruff was buying off police like Sheriff Mooma—”
“Carl Mooma, that would have been.” He frowned and slowly shook his head. “Carl was a pretty good man, as I recall. . . .”
Nobody else did. “And the Slades could hardly not have known if the baby wasn’t even there.”
“You’re saying that Morris and Imogen were parading around town with an empty carriage?”
“Yes. Don’t ask me why. But remember, the baby’s nurse wasn’t with them at the hotel. It could be the baby was with the nurse all along. They could have told her they were going off for the weekend and the nurse didn’t know anything was happening.”
“Oh, but she soon would’ve found out.”
I shook my head. “Not if Mr. Woodruff bought off the reporters.”
He half laughed. “Easier to buy off police than reporters, at least around here. He’d never have succeeded with my dad, I can tell you that.” He scratched his chin; the whiskers sounded as if they hurt.
I went on: “Even if he didn’t buy off the reporters, how far would that story have gone?”
“Could’ve got picked up on the wire. The thing is, why would Lucien Woodruff want to halt an investigation of his own grandchild’s kidnapping?”
I was getting really impatient. “That’s what I’m saying. Because she never was kidnapped. It would have to be because the parents were guilty of something and he didn’t want the family name disgraced or maybe his daughter to go to jail.”
Mr. Gumbrel sighed. “I guess it’s possible, Emma. It’s possible. Trouble is, for newspaper purposes, I mean your story, you can’t speculate in print about the Slades and Lucien Woodruff. We could end up with a lawsuit.”
“But I could still wonder what happened that night.”
“You’d have to tread real carefully, though. Once you suggest a kidnapping never happened, that would be pointing a finger at the family.”
“But—still, there might be something else that could have happened to make the Slades think the baby was kidnapped.” Although I certainly couldn’t think of anything.
I wished the Sheriff would come back.
I glanced at the big schoolhouse clock on the back wall and saw it was after five. I jumped out of my chair. “I’ve got to get back to the hotel to wait tables for dinner. Thanks, Mr. Gumbrel.”
His voice follow
ed me as I fairly flew down the stairs. “You remember to bring me your next installment, hear?”
I heard.
20
It was five-thirty when I slammed the door on Delbert’s voice and ran up the porch steps. The cab took off and I think he was still talking to himself.
Ree-Jane was slumped in one of the green rockers with her feet up on the round green table; she was flipping through one of the fashion magazines in which she would be photographed in the coming years. I glanced over her shoulder at the models.
“You’re really late,” she said, “and Miss Jen’s having fits.” She delivered this news without looking up from the page of svelte summer dresses worn by girls with pouty lips and pointed elbows.
I wished I could have stopped for a moment, as I enjoyed listening to Ree-Jane talk about her future fame. There were so many kinds of it, seesawing back and forth, with Ree-Jane sliding up and down from marrying the Duke of Devonshire or other royalty to being a movie star, then marrying another movie star whose career wasn’t quite equal to hers; then being a famous war photographer; then a tennis champion, coming to glory in the center court at Wimbledon.
I had told her she should start with our state tournament. A lot of the tennis players stayed here at the hotel. Nobody was busy during the tournament, except Mrs. Davidow making her famous mint julep bowl, where people stood around and drank minted Kentucky bourbon through straws. I told Aurora if I’d had a hose, maybe I could have run it up to the fourth floor.
In the kitchen, my mother, far from having fits, was measuring some infinitesimal amount of flavoring into a sauce with a pink tinge (her Shrimp Newburg, possibly), holding up a tiny spoon like a scientist in a lab, then tapping the spoon lightly and observing the dusting of whatever it was that drifted down on her sauce. If Dr. Jekyll had been this careful with his potion, he might not have turned into Mr. Hyde.
Walter called hello. My mother studied the sauce.
I plopped lettuce leaves into bowls, six of them, so there must be a party of four coming, in addition to Miss Bertha and Mrs. Fulbright. I added onion rings and green pepper rings.
While I did this I wondered about Emily Dickinson and if she ever did housework. If she was home all the time (as Mr. Root had said), then she must have. He also said she talked to people from behind a screen. That would really be nice to do. If I could find a truly lightweight screen to carry around, I could set it up whenever I felt like not looking at the person I had to address. Imagine. I could place Miss Bertha’s salad in front of her, unfold my screen, and ask her if she wanted anything else.
I did not realize my mother was at my elbow until she asked why I was lollygagging around. Is that what I was doing?
“Those salads don’t look very interesting. Can’t you give them a little more personality?”
(No wonder my brother liked drama.)
“Paprika would help,” she said. “Chopped-up black or green olives or pimiento.”
I moved over to the shelf of herbs and spices and took down the paprika and its kissin’ cousin, the old, reliable cayenne pepper. I then shook paprika over five salads and red pepper over one, and set it over to one side while I thought. Black olives. Green olives. What looks like a plain green olive chopped up? My brain flickered, sending tiny neon pictures of dancing jalapeño peppers.
I moved quickly to the refrigerator and pulled out ajar of peppers that my mother had used for some Spanish dish, hot as blazes. I chopped green olives and sprinkled them on the five salads. Then I took out a small pepper and chopped it into tiny pieces. I tried one on my tongue. Ow! Call the fire department! I dropped a few bits on salad number six and added a few chopped green olive bits. That salad looked just like the others. I tossed on French dressing and the salads were ready to go.
Here came Vera. Or rather, here whisked Vera. She would be taking care of the party of four.
After serving Miss Bertha and Mrs. Fulbright, I was making Aurora’s before-dinner drink when the yelling began.
My mother gave me a look. “Is that Miss Bertha?”
I was holding a tall glass full of Southern Comfort, brandy, and various juices and looked over my shoulder. “I’m just making Great-Aunt Aurora’s drink.” I was always to refer to her as “Great-Aunt” and only did so when my mother was around.
I had told Walter to get a glass of ice water ready. He was putting it on a small tray.
More yelling.
“Emma!”
“Finished!” I called to her, and set the drink on my small tray, not bothering to add a paper umbrella.
Miss Bertha was grabbing her throat when Walter and I sailed into the dining room with our fatal antidotes.
Aurora loved hers. She sipped and slurped and smacked her lips. She was not a tidy drinker. I hadn’t been too careful in my measuring, but as long as brandy outsmarted juice, my drink was on safe ground.
“Good!” She sipped some more. “Where’s the pineapple half, though?”
“You don’t get pineapple in a Cold Comfort. You’re thinking of a Pine Bomb.” (This was a new concoction of pineapple and Bombay gin.)
“Oh, yes. I’m telling you, girl, you should do this for a living, get yourself a night job over to the Double Down.”
“I’m twelve.” Had Aurora ever actually been to that club? I didn’t think Perry Vines had operated it that long.
I was leaning against the wall, my tray under my arm, as always. “Let’s go back to the Slade baby, and don’t say ‘What baby?’” She was wearing that fake, wondering expression.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, miss, except this drink is one of your best.” There was a wide display of her dentures in what Aurora thought was a captivating smile.
“Here’s what I learned today from Miss Isabel Barnett. You remember I told you she said she’d seen Baby Fay in town that afternoon before she was kidnapped? Well, she doesn’t remember that it was the Slade baby at all, it turns out. She was mixing up babies.”
Aurora fiddled with her lace cuff. “Told you she’s a liar, didn’t I?”
“No she’s not; I think she just made a mistake. And she was the only one I asked who claimed to have seen the baby that weekend.”
“I know what you’re thinking: the baby wasn’t there at all. Told you that too.”
No, I had told her that.
Her remark was delivered to the tapping of her nails against the glass. My summons to refill it.
“You won’t be able to eat your dinner if you drink another Cold Comfort.”
“Oh, don’t be such a stick! ‘You won’t be able to eat your dinner—’ ”
It was maddening. She sounded just like me.
“Just who do you think you are, girl?”
“The bartender. Keep your mind on the Slade case. If the Slades were just pretending the baby was here, well, why were they?” I asked.
“They might have wanted it known the baby was alive at that particular time. For example, say there’s a will, and somebody left a fortune to a person who would get it only if the baby predeceased him. Now, say the baby had died on Friday night: this other person died on the Thursday night. So it’d be the relatives of that person who’d want to collect. They’d pretend the baby was kidnapped, not dead.”
“I don’t think that happened.”
Aurora set down her glass long enough to fling her arms into the air. “I know it didn’t happen, you ninny, I was giving you an example.” She picked up the glass again and held it out. She looked hopeful.
“Give me one good reason for them pretending the baby was with them when she wasn’t and I’ll get you a refill.”
Aurora stared at her glass as if enough concentration could make it walk down to the kitchen on its own. But I guess she was just thinking.
Then she lifted her eyes to me. They were gray and glittered as if their irises were a mix of steel and mica.
“Maybe they lost her.”
I flinched. I nearly dropped the tray my armpit was holding
up. “Lost her? How would you lose a baby?”
“Same way you lose a million dollars or a fish off your line or your way home.”
When I just stood there being stupid, she tilted the glass back and forth. “Or a bet.” Then she laughed in her crafty way.
Lost, I thought. I could hear Mr. Root’s rough voice reading Robert Frost’s poem about the orchard’s plight when no one would come in with a light.
It was so sad. And it sounded like pure chance that anything would be saved.
It sounded, as Aurora said, like a bet.
21
It made me so sad I wasn’t even careful getting the Southern Comfort from the back office. So sad I walked right past Ree-Jane without thinking up something to rile her. So sad I nearly cried tears into the orange juice. So sad I forgot my dessert. (I didn’t forget what it was—pear and pecan tart with butter brittle ice cream—I just forgot to eat it.)
While I ate my dinner, Walter took the fresh Cold Comfort up to Aurora Paradise. I left my plate on the dishwashing counter for Walter and went out the side door and down the gravel drive to the Pink Elephant. The grass outside the door was uncut and thick and wet. The door was thick, and it creaked; I had to stoop to get through it.
The little room was underneath the dining room and housed only my few things, together with mice and cobwebs. The hotel cat liked to visit sometimes, either to sleep or to check out the mouse situation.
But the room’s main purpose had been as a place for a cocktail get-together. Hence its name, the Pink Elephant. Its rough stucco walls were painted pink, of course. Once there had been a painting of a pink elephant in a party hat, waving a bottle of champagne, but it was now gone.
There was a dark wood table and benches, something like a picnic table, but here the benches weren’t attached. Around the room were bottles into which I’d stuck candles, now burnt down to stubs. I also had a lantern that gave off enough light to read by and made interesting shadows on the walls. The room was something like a cave, but a pleasant one.
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