The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes

by Cathy Holton

  “Take me home,” she said to Trevor.

  She had loved Trevor Boone from the moment she first set eyes on him, even though she'd known it wouldn't be easy, even though his mother was dead set against it. Maureen Boone died soon after the wedding, from shame, it was said by some. By others, it was surmised that her heart, atrophied from years of disuse, had simply shriveled into a knot so small and hard it could no longer pump. Whatever the reason, Eadie did not mourn her passing. When Trevor graduated from law school and they returned to Ithaca, they moved into the Boone mansion and Eadie set about getting rid of Maureen's heavy ornate furniture. Instead she filled the rooms with her fertility goddesses, using the dining room as her studio. The plan was for Trevor to practice law for a few years, save as much money as possible, and then give up his law practice to write full-time. But gradually he began to write less and less as the law claimed more and more of his time. Eadie's goddesses, which had started out small, grew monstrous, until they began to fill the entire house like an army of Chinese tomb soldiers. Trevor, frustrated and bored, embarked on his first affair, with a cocktail waitress out at The Thirsty Dog. Eadie, in retaliation, began sleeping with one of the bartenders. Years later, Trevor moved in with his legal secretary, Tonya, and Eadie took up with a personal trainer named Denton Swafford. By this time their twenty-one-year marriage had settled into a predictable pattern of betrayal and reconciliation. But Eadie, tiring of the game, had finally put her foot down. She refused to take him back unless he agreed to stop practicing law and finish his novel, and they both agreed to remain faithful to their wedding vows. No more infidelity.

  And Trevor had been true to his word. At least, technically. As had she. Technically.

  But now their marriage wasn't about cheating, it was about work, and for the first time Trevor could work and Eadie couldn't. She'd had dry spells before, periods when her creative energies went dormant, but never for eighteen months. And now that she had figured out how to work again, although she didn't know why it had to be in Ithaca, she didn't want anyone or anything to jeopardize that.

  “Take me home,” she said again to Trevor.

  “Listen, you guys stay at my place,” Lavonne said. “I'll stay at Joe's tonight and for the rest of the time Trevor's in town.”

  “He's here only for tonight,” Eadie said. “He's leaving in the morning.”

  Lavonne and Joe exchanged looks. Trevor stared at Eadie like he was trying to figure out who in the hell she was. “You know,” he said coldly, “I don't have to stay at all.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said.

  ALL THE WAY TO JOE'S HOUSE, LAVONNE WAS QUIET. IT OCCURRED to her that she had been the one to jump at the chance to sleep at his place, and he hadn't said much of anything. When he finally did speak, he said, “Wow. They're intense.”

  “Who? Eadie and Trevor?” She was relieved that the awkward silence between them had had more to do with the Boones and less to do with Lavonne forcing a sleepover. “They've always been like that. It's a fight to the death, no holds barred. They have an odd marriage and it wouldn't work for everyone, but don't kid yourself. Those two are crazy about each other.”

  He grinned and reached for her hand. “Yeah, I got that.” They held hands all the way back to his place.

  Joe lived in a brick ranch house close to where Nita had grown up. It was a neighborhood of 1950s and 1960s houses with neat, manicured lawns and large trees. Young couples had begun to move in and fix up the houses and now it was one of the hottest real estate areas in town. Joe had redone his house soon after moving in, taking down walls, refinishing floors, raising the ceiling to the rafters so that it felt like a California beach house, open and uncluttered.

  He switched on the lights and went into the kitchen to make them a drink. Lavonne sat down on the overstuffed sofa in the living room and turned on the TV. Jon Stewart was interviewing Harrison Ford on The Daily Show.

  “This is a rerun,” Joe said, setting two martini glasses down on the coffee table.

  “I know.” She leaned over and picked up her drink and then sat back with one foot tucked under her. “I think Jon Stewart's adorable.”

  “Really?” He sat down beside her and leaned to pick up his glass. “I find myself oddly jealous over that comment.”

  She grinned and sipped her drink.

  He tasted his martini and said, “Not bad. Not as good as Eadie's, but not bad.”

  “Not bad at all.”

  “What's her secret? How does Eadie make her martinis so good?”

  “If I told you, I'd have to kill you.”

  He kicked his shoes off and stretched his feet out on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle. “You know,” he said, smoothing his shirt over his flat stomach. “There are ways I could make you talk.”

  “Really?” She arched one eyebrow and looked at him over the rim of her glass.

  “Did I ever tell you I was a wrestler?” He set his drink down and flexed his arm. “Nineteen seventy-five New York State Wrestling Champion, one- hundred-sixty-five-pound weight class.”

  “Wow.” She squeezed his bicep lightly with her fingers.

  “Want me to show you some of my wrestling moves?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said.

  “It's pretty entertaining stuff.”

  She sipped her drink and thought, So this is what love feels like. Like falling down a flight of stairs or jumping from a tall bridge. She said, “I didn't have time to pack a bag. Do you have some jammies I can borrow?”

  He took her glass from her and set it down on the table. “You won't need jammies,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her. His eyes, so close to hers, were a brilliant green. A small jagged scar stretched beneath his lower lip. “Are you sure you're ready for this?” he said.

  She smiled and ran her finger along the scar. “I've been ready,” she said, and kissed him back.

  TREVOR AND EADIE WENT BACK TO LAVONNE'S PLACE AND ARGUED for nearly an hour. Then they went to bed. In the morning, Eadie woke up to find him gone. There was a note pinned to Trevor's pillow, along with a sprig of forsythia that he had obviously pulled from Lavonne's front yard. The note read, “Dear Eadie—I love you. I'm sorry you're unhappy and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to see you through this, even if it means sleeping alone and not seeing you for weeks at a time. I'll call you tonight. I'm going to London the end of the month and I hope you'll go with me. Love, Trevor.” Underneath this, was a hastily scrawled note. “P.S. Don't sleep with anyone else.”

  Eadie grinned and yawned, and rolled over in bed. She had to admit, even after twenty-two years the sex was still good. She knew there were more than a few women who might look at her and think she was crazy for sending Trevor away.

  But then Eadie had never cared much for what other people thought of her.

  WHEN LAVONNE GOT HOME LATE THAT AFTERNOON, EADIE WAS sitting out on the deck smoking a cigarette.

  “I hope you're not picking up bad habits staying with me,” Lavonne said, sitting down at the table. She had just climbed out of the shower and her hair was wet. Joe had dropped her off, but he didn't stay. It was Saturday and he was leaving on Sunday morning for a business trip to Boston. “In case you don't know this, cigarettes kill.”

  Eadie put her head back and blew smoke rings into the blue sky. “One bad habit at a time,” she said. “I gave up Mondo Logs but don't ask me to give up cigarettes yet.”

  A lawn mower hummed in the distance. The air was fragrant with the scent of honeysuckle and barbecue. Lavonne slumped in her chair, tired but happy.

  “So?” Eadie said. “How was it?”

  Lavonne grinned and shook her head. “I can't even begin to tell you,” she said. “I had no idea what I was missing.”

  Eadie pursed her lips and blew smoke over her shoulder. “Better late than never,” she said.

  In the alley behind the house, a group of children played tag. The evening sun dipped slowly behind a line of ragged purple clouds. “We
're out of vodka,” Eadie said. “All you've got is beer.” She stubbed her cigarette out in one of the potted plants. “What's with all the Coronas in the refrigerator?” she said, nodding with her head toward the garage. I never took you for a beer lover.”

  “Eadie, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. The only way I could be any more of a beer lover is if I'd grown up in Cincinnati.”

  Bats flitted in the darkening sky, swooping above the trees. Lavonne went inside to get a box of matches and came back out with two glasses of sweet tea. She bent to light the citronella candles. Eadie sipped her tea and thought about Trevor.

  “You're kind of quiet tonight,” Lavonne said. Eadie's face, in the candlelight, was lovely.

  “I'm tired, is all.”

  “Didn't get much sleep last night?”

  “Nope. Did you?”

  “Nope.” They grinned at each other. “I guess we do all right for a couple of old broads,” Lavonne said.

  “Old broads?” Eadie said. “Speak for yourself.”

  The soft evening closed around them. Tree frogs chanted in the shadows of the boxwood hedge. A few faint stars sprinkled the night sky. “You know, it's funny,” Eadie said. “But I keep dreaming about my mother. It's the same dream, and she's trying to tell me something, but when I wake up I can't remember.”

  “Recurrent dreams are important,” Lavonne said.

  “She's been dead twenty years but she visits me constantly in my dreams. And the funny thing is,” Eadie put her glass down on the table and turned toward Lavonne. “The funny thing is, she's become some kind of wise woman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you never knew my mother. She was a pretty simple person. I never gained much knowledge from her other than what I learned from watching her fuck up and deciding I wouldn't do the same.” Eadie grinned. “Don't look so shocked, Lavonne. It's okay to speak ill of the dead. She doesn't mind. She knows I loved her. Always.” Eadie sipped her tea carefully and then set the glass down again. “But somewhere on the other side, she's picked up some kind of knowledge. She's trying to tell me something, and in the dream I realize what she's saying is important, but when I wake up I can't remember.”

  “Maybe you don't want to remember,” Lavonne said. “Maybe it's something painful that you're not ready to face yet.”

  “Hey,” Eadie said suddenly, putting her feet down. “I'm hungry. Are you hungry?”

  “I guess. But I don't feel like cooking.”

  “Me neither. Let's go out to eat.” Lights came on in the house next door. Moths as big as butterflies fluttered against the window screens. “Let's get dressed up and you can take me out and show me what this town has to offer in the way of entertainment now that it's gone all grand and upscale.”

  ————

  THE RESTAURANT WAS PACKED. IT WAS A NEW PLACE OUT ON THE river and was called, of all things, The Grotto. It was run by a chef out of New York who had tired of the rat race of Manhattan and moved south a little over a year ago. The menu was primarily seafood and southern Italian cuisine.

  “Damn,” Eadie said, looking around. They'd had to wait at the bar for a table, and were working on their second shaker of peach martinis. The hostess called their name and then led them to a small booth near the kitchen. “I don't know a soul in this place,” Eadie said, looking around as she slid into the booth. “Who are all these people?”

  “The Sunbelt is growing,” Lavonne said. “Everyone's moving south.”

  They ordered and then sat looking around the crowded restaurant. Candles flickered on tables and in sconces set into the thick stucco walls. One wall had been painted with a mural showing an outdoor market scene in Trapani or Palermo, the Tyrrhenian Sea sparkling in the background. Two young couples with a fussy toddler arrived and were seated at the table next to them. Soon after being strapped into his high chair, the child set up a relentless, high-pitched wail that the couples seemed oblivious to.

  “Oh great,” Eadie said. “We go out for a nice quiet dinner and we've got to sit next to a screamer.” She looked around the crowded restaurant but couldn't see any empty tables where they could move.

  Lavonne sipped her martini. “What does it mean when young mothers start looking like teenagers?”

  “It means you're older than shit.”

  “That's what I thought.”

  “Hell,” Eadie said, eyeing the young couple with the screaming baby. “For all we know, they might be teenagers.”

  The baby, whose name, unfortunately, was Caldwell, raised his voice an octave and began to kick the table with his feet. “Now, Caldwell,” his mother said in a cheerful voice loud enough to be heard by most of the restaurant. “I know you don't want to sit in that high chair, but Mommy and Daddy are trying to have dinner with our friends and we'd appreciate it if you could be patient. Can you be patient, Caldwell?”

  Apparently not. Caldwell opened his arms wide and turned his tear- streaked face to his mother. “I just love it when he makes that face,” she said. “Isn't he the cutest thing?” she gushed.

  “Adorable,” the other woman said.

  Caldwell's screams took on a tinge of rage.

  “You know,” Lavonne said to Eadie, “when my kids acted like that, one of us got up and took them out of the restaurant. There was a period of about six years when neither Leonard nor I ever got to sit through a complete meal.”

  “I always thought your girls were well-behaved.”

  “It's not that they were well-behaved. They were awful at times. It's just that we didn't feel it was right to inflict them on innocent bystanders. Mothers today seem to think they can reason with toddlers. There's no reasoning with a two-year-old.”

  As if to prove her point, the young mother at the opposite table said loudly, “Caldwell, I can appreciate your frustration. I wouldn't like it either if I was strapped into some wooden chair. And I know, if you could talk, you'd express your frustration more reasonably than you're doing right now.”

  Caldwell began to throw himself violently against his restraints.

  “Now that,” Eadie said, clutching her martini glass and pointing with one finger, “is why I never had children.”

  “Actually, I always thought you'd make a good mother.”

  “Tell the truth, Lavonne.” Eadie raised one eyebrow and sipped her drink. “Don't you miss having babies around?”

  Lavonne looked at Caldwell. “No,” she said. “I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved being a mom, I still do, but I wouldn't go back to those toddler days now. I've got the rest of my life in front of me to do with as I please. I'm not picking up after anyone but myself. I'm not wiping anyone's backside but my own.”

  Eadie grinned. “Speaking of wiping other people's backsides,” she said. “How's Leonard?” Lavonne had told her about the visit with Christy, Landon, and Preston. They'd laughed about it for days.

  “I haven't heard from him since he got back to Atlanta. Since I told him about Joe.”

  At the next table, Caldwell's mother refused to give up. “Look, Caldwell, what shape do you see here?” She held up a cocktail napkin. “Is it a square? Is it a square, Caldwell?” She picked up a votive candle. “Look at the candle, Caldwell. It's round. Can you say round?”

  Eadie said, “Look at the martini glass, Lavonne. It's round. Can you say round?” Lavonne said, “Look at the cocktail shaker. It's round.”

  “And speaking of round,” Eadie said, waving down the waiter. “We'll have another one.”

  After a while, Caldwell's father tired of the baby's screams. He picked him up and carried him around the restaurant nestled in his arm, standing in front of the opened kitchen so the baby could watch the employees work. Their food came and Eadie and Lavonne settled down to a quiet dinner. A few minutes later, Eadie's cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, and then turned the phone off.

  “It's Trevor,” she said. “I'll call him later.”

  “How are things going with you two?”

  E
adie twirled her pasta with her fork. “As well as can be expected,” she said. “Something's wrong but I don't know what. It's frustrating. He's starting to lose patience with me.”

  Lavonne hesitated, trying to pick her words carefully. “Maybe this isn't about you and Trevor.” Eadie looked at her, but kept eating. “I've been thinking about what you said earlier. You said you'd been dreaming about your mother, right? And she's trying to tell you something, only you can't remember in the morning. Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Your shadow.”

  “Goddamn it, you sound like Trevor. I'm not crazy, Lavonne. At least I don't think I am.”

  “Crazy is a subjective term.”

  “I'll try and remember that when they're hauling me off in a straitjacket.”

  “Look, Eadie, I went through something similar a couple of years ago. I started seeing my dead mother. Everywhere. I saw her on street corners waiting to catch a bus; I saw her in crowded supermarkets, as real as you are sitting across from me now. I was beginning to think I had some kind of hormonal imbalance. I was beginning to think it might be time for a trip to the psychiatrist. But what I realized sometime during all of that craziness, is that middle age is a time when we have to face our childhood demons. We have to slay those dragons, and then move on.”

  Eadie drank steadily and then put her glass down again. “Who said anything about dragons?” she said. “I don't buy into that blame-your-parentsfor-your-problems-as-an-adult mentality. People have to be responsible for their own lives.”