The Peach Keeper

by Sarah Addison Allen

  Paxton said, “Good morning, Detective Olsen.”

  Willa finally found her voice. “Woody, what are you doing here?”

  He stood awkwardly by the door. “I’m on my way to work. I saw your light. I worried you by coming in here a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to put your mind at ease. Maybe it’s good that you’re here, too, Paxton. I was going to tell you today. We can’t determine the cause of death of that skeleton found at the Madam. There was trauma to the skull, but it also appeared that he’d suffered what would have been a fatal fall. Maybe it was an accident. I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened, or how he got there.”

  “A fall?” Paxton repeated.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Willa said to Paxton as she stood and walked over to Woody. “I’ve been thinking about when you were in here last. You asked me if I recognized anything in that suitcase buried with the skeleton. You were talking about the photo in the scrapbook, weren’t you? The photo of Tucker Devlin that looks so much like my dad.”

  Except for his eyes darting once to Paxton, who was still at the table and deep in thought, Woody gave nothing away in his expression. “I was the only one who made the connection. And I didn’t say a thing.”

  “Thanks, Woody.”

  He nodded. “Your dad was a wonderful man. Best teacher I ever had.”

  The bell over the door rang again. Woody automatically stepped out of the way to let whoever it was enter. But no one was there.

  “Don’t pay any attention to that,” Willa said. “It’s been doing it a lot. I think it’s broken.”

  “You know that old superstition, don’t you, the one that says when you hear a bell ring, good fortune is pouring down? It means you should cup your hands out and catch it.”

  Willa automatically held her hands out. “Like this?”

  “Exactly,” he said as he turned to leave. “Now I bet your bell is fixed.”

  Willa smiled and shook her head, then she walked back to Paxton. “I think what he was really trying to tell me was that my grandmother was in the clear. So now we know Agatha won’t be dragged into this, either.”

  “But I don’t get it,” Paxton said. “If Tucker Devlin died from a fall, why did Nana Osgood say she killed him?”

  Willa wrapped her hands around her warm coffee cup. “I have a feeling our grandmothers never wanted anyone to know the whole story.”

  “But what could be worse than what Nana Osgood told us?”

  Willa raised her brows. “Do you really want to know?”

  “No, you’re right,” Paxton said, shaking her head. “It’s time for things to finally be laid to rest.”

  When Paxton drove to the Madam two hours before the gala was to begin on Friday night, the sky was twilight blue and the windows in the Madam were bright yellow against the evening clouds, giving the impression that the sun had actually set into the house itself and was now sitting inside. The old oak tree by the house was steadied by several cables tethered to the ground, and spotlights were aimed at it. The effect was like an old performer onstage, basking in the glow of one last ovation. As she approached, she could see the leaves on the tree shaking slightly, which was partly from the sprinkler system in the branches to keep it hydrated while it took root, but also from the dozens of birds that had flown here en masse and had taken up residence in the tree. They’d been the bane of Colin’s existence all week. He could get them to fly away, but they always came back.

  She parked and walked up the front steps, her breath catching in her chest. The restoration was finally complete, and it was beautiful. This house stood as a testimony to life, to friendship, to good things coming out of bad situations. And she had no idea it would mean this much when work first started on the place.

  Once she was inside, she did a walk-through. The interior was lovely in the evening, the lighting designed to cast a warm yellow glow off the dark paneling in every room. The banquet hall was decorated with sparkly streamers and lighted floral arrangements on every table. Every place setting had a small book documenting the charities the club had supported over the years, including some essays by past recipients of the scholarships they’d given out, as well as gift bags containing custom candles and chocolates, all with the seventy-fifth anniversary logo on them. At the dais in front of the room was a lectern and a large screen, on which flashed photographs of club members throughout the years. There was a string quartet in the corner, tuning up.

  Later, when she was in the kitchen, checking to see if everything was on schedule, she heard the music cue up, then the murmur of voices out in the lobby. The first guests were arriving. Soon there were people mingling everywhere, and waiters were carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres that seemed to float through the crowd. Paxton greeted everyone, including her mother and father, who, despite all the time and work that went into this place, had never actually seen it since that first day, over a year ago, when they’d toured the property and decided to make it an Osgood venture to restore it.

  Her father was impressed, but her mother admitted nothing. She still wasn’t happy about Paxton moving out, and was even less happy when Paxton started referring to Sebastian as her boyfriend. But Paxton loved her mother and accepted her as she was. She even took it in stride when her mother found out she was seated with Nana Osgood and demanded her place card be moved to another table. Nana Osgood had arrived earlier with the nurse Paxton had hired to attend to her that night, and was the only one seated in the banquet hall. Paxton wondered what Nana Osgood thought about being here, after all these years. But when she’d first arrived, all she’d done was complain about the heat and demand a cocktail.

  The last-minute seating change was the first in a few minor emergencies that took Paxton away until the food was ready to be served. She had just straightened out a room switch upstairs and was about to walk down to tell Maria to cue everyone to be seated when she stopped at the top of the staircase and looked down.

  It was a dreamlike setting of princess gowns and black ties. It was magical, everything she’d hoped it would be. But she was ready for it to be over, because the gala had been planned around everything that the Women’s Society Club shouldn’t be. And she’d fallen right into the trap.

  With some relief, she saw that Willa and Colin had finally arrived. Willa looked beautiful, like something out of time in that vintage dress, and for a moment Paxton could almost see Willa’s grandmother as a young woman, sweeping through the rooms here at the Madam. Colin stood close to her. Paxton knew her brother well enough to recognize the subtle shift that was happening in him. She’d seen him often at the Madam that week as the landscaping was being completed, and he’d seemed centered, almost calm. He’d once even asked her if there were any other town-houses near hers up for sale. He’d like to have a home base for when he came back for visits, he’d said, with a subtext that was so obvious it was almost too good to be true. She was careful not to make too much of it, but it still made her heart soar. Sebastian, Willa, and now Colin. Sebastian had been right. If you make room in your life, good things will enter.

  Paxton caught the manager’s eye and nodded, and the signal was given that everyone should now enter the banquet hall.

  Paxton went to the ladies’ room and checked her makeup, then stared at herself, telling herself that she really could go through with this.

  Sebastian had waited for her at the back of the banquet hall once everyone had been seated. She hadn’t seen him in two days, and she’d felt it physically, like a withdrawal. They’d called each other often, but it wasn’t the same. She wanted to touch him, to have him near. It was still so new. She was afraid of losing it. But gala preparations had kept her at the Madam until the early hours of the morning for the past few days. Last night, she’d even slept here, and had only gone back to Hickory Cottage to change.

  “You look lovely, darling,” Sebastian said when she entered.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.” She took his hands and squeezed them. He h
ad to feel that she was trembling.

  “Everything is perfect. I was surprised to see you even managed to get your grandmother to come. How much did it take to get one of the nurses to escort Agatha tonight?”

  A smile twitched at her lips. “You don’t want to know.”

  “It’s almost over.” He leaned in and said, “I’ve missed you.”

  She let that wash over her, warm and comforting. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “I know you haven’t had time to order furniture for your house,” he said.

  “I’ve been too busy. It’s next on my list.”

  “I had a bed delivered there today,” Sebastian said.

  That made her laugh. “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t wait to go home,” she said.

  “I can’t wait to take you there. I have some very good memories in that house already.” He led her to the dais at the front of the room, then whispered, “Good luck. You’ll do great.” The quartet ended their tune. There was applause as she walked to the lectern, and Paxton watched as Sebastian took a seat at the table with Willa and Colin and Nana Osgood.

  Her insides were shaking, and she thought for a moment that she couldn’t go through with this. But then she thought of her grandmother and Georgie, how everything about this house and the club had to do with them, with honoring them, and she knew it was the right decision.

  She cleared her throat and said, “Welcome, everyone, to the Walls of Water Women’s Society Club seventy-fifth anniversary gala.”

  More applause.

  “I wrote a speech months ago. Those who know me aren’t surprised. I’m such a planner.” Some people laughed. “The speech was about what good work we’ve done and how proud we should be of ourselves.” She paused. “But I tore it up this week, because I realized we’ve gotten it all wrong.”

  There was a change in the air. Everyone seemed to realize something was up.

  “This club was formed to help each other. Not others. Each other. As in, we’re all in this together. It wasn’t formed to set us apart from others, or to compete with one another. It was formed because seventy-five years ago, two best friends in the darkest moments of their lives said, All we have is our deep and abiding love for each other. We can’t lose that or we lose ourselves. If we don’t help each other, who will? I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know how, but the Women’s Society Club lost its true focus. It’s not what it was, and I can’t bring it back. That’s why I’m stepping down as president tonight, and removing my name from the roster.” The room started to rumble. “I have not always been the best friend to any of you,” she continued, searching the crowd for Kirsty Lemon, for Moira Kinley, for Stacy Herbst and Honor Redford. “But I can promise that from this night forward, I will be there for you if you need me, anytime, anyplace. That’s the true nature of the club. It was never meant to be an institution. It was a pinkie swear among teenagers who were afraid, and knowing that they could count on each other made them feel better. Our grandmothers knew they would be friends for their entire lives. How many of us can say that? How can we know the true meaning of charity if we don’t even know how to help those closest to us?” Paxton stepped back. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

  She rubbed her forehead, squinting against the spotlight. The room was silent. Suddenly, everyone turned toward a small sound coming from a table in front.

  Agatha was chuckling, the sound rusty, like a piece of machinery that hadn’t been used in years. “That’s my girl,” she said.

  There wasn’t much celebrating to be done after that. Dinner was served, then awards were given out and some more speeches were made, but the ceremony had a hurried and awkward feel to it, and most were eager to leave. It would go down as a small disaster and a definite scandal, but it gave people something to talk about, which made them happy. Paxton didn’t care. It was the right thing to do, and she felt so much better now, even if her mother wasn’t talking to her.

  Most people avoided Paxton as they left. She was sure everyone wanted to talk to one another about it first, to come to some consensus about how they all felt about it. One way or the other, Paxton knew that those who decided to stick with her would be her true friends. The others would just be scenery.

  At the end of the evening, Paxton and Willa walked Agatha out to the nurse’s car, after Agatha had given them a blind tour of the Madam, pointing out by feel and memory everything she remembered about the house. She and Georgie sliding down the banister and their skirts flying up. Playing dolls in Georgie’s room. Having pineapple upside-down cake the Jacksons’ cook would make in a cast-iron frying pan, so that the brown sugar on top turned crispy. A slide-away secret compartment in the bookcase where they used to leave notes for each other.

  “I’m proud of you, Paxton. This place smells new. Different. It’s a good place again,” Agatha said, wobbling slightly as Willa and Paxton helped her down the front steps. Paxton wasn’t sure, but her grandmother might have been a little drunk. “And what you did in there tonight, that took guts.”

  “Thank you, Nana. Mama may never speak to me again.”

  “Her loss.” Before Agatha got in the nurse’s car, she said, “You and Willa, I think you might have finally made him go away. Real friendship was the only thing he was afraid of.”

  “Him?” Willa asked.

  “Tucker. He’s been around these past few weeks. Haven’t you noticed? I’ve felt him. There’s been a strange sweet scent in the air. And you can’t tell me you haven’t seen birds acting strangely lately.”

  Willa and Paxton moved in closer to each other as Agatha got in the car and the nurse reached over and buckled her seat belt. “What really happened here, Nana? Did you really …” Paxton couldn’t finish the sentence, not with the nurse there.

  “Yes, I did,” Agatha said. “Don’t forget.”

  Paxton and Willa watched the car drive off, then gave each other odd looks. Just as they turned to walk back up the steps, the scent of peaches permeated the air for a moment, thick and cloying, before it faded into the night, crossing the moon in a wisp of smoke, then disappearing. Suddenly, the oak tree began to shake as dozens of birds took flight, their dark wings showing flashes of yellow like fireworks.

  “Coincidence?” Willa asked, wrapping her arm in Paxton’s.

  “There’s no such thing,” Paxton answered, holding on tight as they watched the birds fly away.

  EIGHTEEN

  The Peach Keepers

  1936

  The first time it happened, Georgie woke up, suddenly freezing. She didn’t know why. It was so hot that summer that she had to sleep on top of her bedsheets, and she still melted every night. But that night she woke up to her perspiration freezing and cracking on her skin. She shivered and looked to the window, expecting to see the world frozen over. The world was changing, she thought sleepily. It had been changing for months. And now that Tucker, with his charming smile and magical ways, had moved into the Madam with them, Georgie felt the changes even more. There was a lot of hope in the air, hope that their financial problems would soon be over with this peach orchard they were planning. And her father, who ignored her on good days and blamed her for her mother’s death during childbirth on bad ones, even seemed happy to see her at dinner now. He was happy to see her because Tucker was happy to see her. Tucker changed people that way. And because of that she ignored the way he would brush up against her in the hallways, how he was always around when she got out of the bath. She ignored his restlessness and the way his temper would flare up sometimes. Agatha had told her she was being silly, anyway, and that she had no idea how lucky she was. Tucker had changed Agatha, too. She’d once been able to tell Agatha anything, but now Agatha burned with something hot every time she saw Georgie, and Georgie didn’t know why. Georgie had felt very alone lately. She didn’t realize just how alone she was up here on Jackson Hill until her friends stopped coming to see her. And at parties, they ignored her.
So Georgie spent most of her time in her room now, mending dresses so she could wear them one more year, or rearranging the dolls displayed in her cupboard, brushing their hair and ironing their aprons, and dreaming of the day when all these changes would be over and they could all go back to being normal again.

  There was the smell of smoke and peaches around her that night as she sat up, shivering in her bed. She was used to that, the peach smell, anyway. Tucker carried it on his skin. It followed him around wherever he went. That’s why he said birds bothered him so—because they liked the way he smelled. Georgie had never argued, but she’d always thought the birds swooping down on him seemed angry, not enamored.

  She looked around her dark room, and that’s when she saw a small orange light by the door. The lit end of a cigarette. Someone was standing by her closed door. Her heart leapt in her chest. It felt like a fist striking her from inside.

  Tucker walked out of the shadow. He put the cigarette to his lips and took a puff, brightening his face and making it glow. He dropped the cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, and everything was dark again.

  When he came to her, she didn’t understand what was happening. When he finally left, she stayed in her bed for the rest of the night, too afraid to get up. She heard him come back down from his attic bedroom in the morning, pause by her door, then walk away. When the house was quiet, she finally got up and washed, but then she propped a chair against the doorknob and wouldn’t let anyone in until her father demanded she join them for dinner. A week, two weeks, passed, and Tucker made no move toward her again, and she thought that was it. She’d actually begun to recover. Her world was no longer the same, but she knew she would survive.

  But then he came back.

  It went on all summer. No matter how many times she reached out for help, no one listened to her. He made them not listen. She couldn’t see an end to it. It was going to go on like this forever unless she stopped it. But she wasn’t that brave. She’d never been that brave.