Mrs. Nesbitt registers the meaning of my remark, holds me in a long look and nods. “That was brave.”
I smile. “Yep.”
Dr. Nesbitt steps outside with a cup of coffee. “How are you, ladies?”
Mrs. Nesbitt taps her fists together. “Moving forward… one link at a time.”
Dr. Nesbitt sits on the porch step. He’s already dressed for the day, one of the few he has spent without seeing patients in a long while. “Mother and I were talking yesterday, Iris. I plan to drive home today after we see your father’s attorney. You and Mother call me when you’re ready to come home. I suspect it’ll be a full car.”
Mrs. Nesbitt turns to me. Her tone is serious. “I told Avery that we have lots of dusting to do here. It simply can’t be rushed.”
In the afternoon we consult Daddy’s lawyer about his last will and testament. We learn that he planned to leave the Bootery in Kansas City to Celeste Simmons Baldwin and everything else to me. “A curious decision,” the attorney says, “the way it’s divided up. But… it’s of no consequence.” He slides the document across his desk. “It has not been signed and witnessed.”
“So there is no will?” I ask.
“Your father’s earlier will, written after your mother’s death, still stands.” He gives me a deep look. “You are the sole beneficiary of both stores, the house, all the property, all the assets. Since your father and Miss Simmons were unmarried at the time of his demise, you have no obligation to her whatsoever.”
I sense the lawyer has met Celeste. I imagine the attorney detected a sour petal in Mrs. Baldwin-to-be’s Jungle Gardenia perfume. “Does Celeste know it was not signed?” I ask.
“Yes. Your father planned to take care of it during his”—he looks down—“ill-fated trip to Atchison.” He turns to Dr. and Mrs. Nesbitt. “Until the age of eighteen, Iris will need both a legal guardian and a conservator of her estate. Someone trustworthy must be assigned to manage her assets and help with her life decisions. I imagine Celeste Simmons wants very much to be that individual.”
I look up at the Nesbitts, but they stare at the wood grain tabletop as though I’ve already moved to Kansas City.
They don’t talk all the way home. My heart wilts. My bad dreams have come true. I am tripping right into the muddy water rising around the former Mrs. Charles Baldwin-to-be.
Dr. Nesbitt loads his grip in the car. “If you don’t mind a bit of advice, Iris, I’d keep the will quiet until you get your head above water. I’m going to stop by the store, tell Carl goodbye.” We wave from the porch as he drives off with the file on the seat.
The phone rings inside. Mrs. Nesbitt and I don’t move. We exchange a look. I say, “He means, don’t talk to Celeste.”
“I feel married to her now,” I tell Mrs. Nesbitt over supper. She smiles. “No wonder she wants me in Kansas City—the store, money, belongings.” We’re quiet for a moment. “But there’s more… that makes it harder.”
“What?”
“Celeste is a hobo. She’s desperate. She’s counting on me. Part of me can’t stand her, and the other part feels sorry for her.”
Mrs. Nesbitt sighs. She’s got the same intense expression she gets puzzling out one of her crosswords. “Kansas City is a lively place, Iris—lots of young people, opportunity, fun. Celeste would keep it… jazzy. Plus, Cecil and Dot don’t live there, and it’s not dusty like Wellsford. The schools are excellent.”
I sink into my cellar inside. Why doesn’t she just come out and say there’s no room for me with Gladys Dilgert in Wellsford?
I hear the unexpected edge in my voice. “Mrs. Nesbitt, Celeste won’t waste a minute luring another husband, and I’ll be stuck with them forever at the Bootery.” I picture myself sweeping foot powder off the floor, dizzy from staring at the crooked seams in our customers’ stockings. “Plus, I already have enough credits to graduate from high school.”
The kitchen swims. I can’t swallow. “I’m sorry. I’m as mixed up as her.” I look away, tears streaming down my cheeks. My mind escapes to Leroy wrapping himself so completely around me that I disappear.
Mrs. Nesbitt wipes her mouth, straightens her silverware. “Between the lines of that will I learned something about your father this afternoon that is quite remarkable.”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t trust him, with good reason… but his will, even the revised one, made one statement loud and clear: He trusted you.”
CHAPTER 20
“So here are the slippers I talked to.” I put them side by side on the rug Saturday morning.
Mrs. Nesbitt circles around as though analyzing a priceless sculpture. “How did they sound?”
“Ma’am? They didn’t actually talk!”
“When he walked. Did they scuff, or drag, or flap?”
I think a moment, step in them and curl my toes. I circle the bedroom, trying different strides until I hit Daddy’s rhythm—a crisp creak, creak, creak. “That’s it,” I say over my shoulder as I head out to the parlor. “He was a snappy stepper, always on the move, even at home.
“And this sound…” I close my eyes, shift my weight on a squeaky floorboard by his desk. “I’ve heard it a thousand times. Then he’d sit and there’d be a long dramatic exhale—unh—at everything on his desk that he had to do. Next, he’d rub his sandpapery cheeks.” I sit on his cane chair and find his fat, black fountain pen in the drawer. I stop. I’m little again, not allowed to touch it. “He sounded like a mouse—scritch-scratching his pen, rattling receipts, his cufflinks tapping on the blotter.”
Mrs. Nesbitt sits on the divan with a satisfied smile. “Lovely! Dusting for sounds is so rewarding.” She looks around. “Would you like to work with something else? Or is that enough?”
I sigh, staring blankly at Mama’s piano, her secretary desk. I turn to Mrs. Nesbitt. “It’s enough because dusting won’t help me know what to do with all this hard old furniture, and Daddy’s fancy pants and umbrella, and my dull bedspreads and broken dolls and third-grade schoolwork, and that stupid ugly clock. Oh, and then there’s Celeste. There’s absolutely not one thing to do with Celeste!”
I burst into tears. The next thing I know, I am walking into the kitchen to boil water. Mrs. Nesbitt and Henry follow.
On the summer’s muggiest morning we sit drinking hot tea. I feel alert like Marie, waiting for something, absorbing every sound—the way the teaspoon clinks brightly on Mrs. Nesbitt’s cup and dully on mine.
I look over at her. “Okay!” I say suddenly. “If you insist, I’ll try Mama’s brush.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“I know exactly where it is.” I head to my room and in a moment I am back, holding out Mama’s old tortoiseshell hairbrush to Mrs. Nesbitt. “See… the handle isn’t even rubbed down the way it’s supposed to be in real life. She hardly got to use it.”
Wound deep within the bristles I discover a single hair. I unwind it, lay it across my palm. It’s long and dark and wavy. “I wonder if it’s naturally curly or if it has just been in the brush so long.”
Mrs. Nesbitt leans in, looks from my hand to my head. I pinch one end and lay Mama’s hair on mine like a human halo.
She studies the situation, her glasses sparkling. “A perfect match!”
I go to the dining room to examine my head in the buffet mirror. Is the rest of me a perfect match for my mother?
“No doubt through the years your father made a strong, perhaps painful connection between you and your mother—your voices, expressions, mannerisms. Did he ever say so?”
“No.” I look away, my insides uneasy. “He never spoke of it.”
Once I’ve rewound the hair in the brush and wrapped it in a lace dresser scarf, Mrs. Nesbitt asks, “Would you consider cooking something?”
“What do you mean?”
“A recipe.” Mrs. Nesbitt touches my elbow, guides me back to the kitchen.
“For what? The kitchen is already full of condolence food.”
I carry the wooden recipe b
ox to the table. “It’s been mostly shut,” I say, filing through. I stop at “Cottage Pudding” because the recipe card looks used—stained and bent. I hold it up. “Maybe Mama made this. Maybe she liked it.”
“Let’s decide she loved it,” Mrs. Nesbitt says. “Is this her handwriting?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It looks clear and unhurried. A bit rounded. Was your mother a bit rounded?”
“Not at the sanatorium. She was thin and hot with a wet washcloth on her forehead.”
I grind the daylights out of our stiff old mixer. It clicks and bounces off the ceramic bowl. I crack eggs, scrape a wooden spoon. Mrs. Nesbitt asks, “Are any of these sounds familiar from before?”
“No.”
I grease the glass cake pan, transfer the batter into it, and put it in the oven. We sit at the table, letting the scent of cottage pudding transform the room.
“You have no memories of being in here with her?” Mrs. Nesbitt asks.
“No, except that smell. The vanilla.” I smile. “Or am I remembering your Anti-Pain Oil?”
After I wash the mixing bowls and spoons we eat the moist, steaming cake with applesauce on top.
“This is internal anti-pain medicine,” Mrs. Nesbitt says, saluting heaven with her fork.
Later that afternoon Leroy and I sit on our old picnic table behind the church. I explain the pudding cake and all about dusting, even though I’m sure he’s not the least bit interested. “It’s not about dirt. It’s finding what you thought you lost, making up what you never had.” Leroy doesn’t answer. “Sounds kinda strange, I guess.” Leroy still doesn’t reply. I look away. “So, anyway, I still have no idea what to do with everything.” My cellar door opens. The ghosts are restless. “I can’t stand to think about that.”
“You can’t take anything to Kansas City?”
“No. And I can’t stand to think about that, either. I hate Kansas City.”
I explain about Daddy’s will. “So the only reason Celeste wants to be my guardian…”
Leroy turns to me, his eyes bright. “Is your money and the store.” He counts on his fingers. “So let’s see, you dread moving there. You don’t trust her. You’re not a shoe salesman. You’ll end up living with some flashy new husband of hers someday. But you’re just going to go right ahead and…”
I give him a shut up look. “In case you missed it, I don’t have a choice for two whole years.”
He’s practically shouting. “God, Iris! What about the Nesbitts?”
I shout back. “Did you notice they haven’t asked me? They can’t, for some reason. Maybe it’s Gladys Dilgert. Who knows why they don’t want me there.”
“Have you asked them?”
“NO!”
Leroy throws up his hands. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Of course you don’t ask, because you are a speck of dirt on God’s Sunday-school shoes. You’re just an orphan with fleas.”
“Thank you so much. That was simply beautiful. You can really shut up now.” I stare straight ahead at clumps of cattails sweeping the church steps. Top-heavy sunflowers droop, their leaves baked golden by the August sun.
Leroy reaches over, lifts my hair off my shoulder, tucks it behind my ear. I feel him looking at me. I stare at my lap. He touches the rim of my ear, outlines it. Then he traces around and around the inside curves with his fingertip.
“Ask me what I’m doing,” he whispers.
My breath lifts and lowers me. “What are you doing, Leroy?”
“Dusting your ear.”
Mrs. Nesbitt is on the porch swing. “I hear Marie, from a hundred miles away,” she says as I come up the walk. “I sure miss her.”
My heart is in my throat. I look her in the eye. “Mrs. Nesbitt?”
“Yes?”
The words pop right out. “I want you and Dr. Nesbitt to be my guardians.”
I hear a sharp inhale. Mrs. Nesbitt stiffens and stares right past me over the chipped porch rail.
I take a breath. “And I do not want to live in Kansas City. I want to live in Wellsford with you.”
Mrs. Nesbitt fumbles her hankie under her glasses. “Oh, these damn things.”
I reach to help her, then pull back. “I’m sorry. I don’t have… I’m…”
She motions for me to sit beside her, closes her eyes, gathers herself. She looks silvery and fragile. “Years ago, when my husband died, I thought I had suffered the big loss of my life.” She works the damp hankie in her fingers. “I was sure I was protected from a repeat of that impossible pain. My turn was over.”
The swing trembles. We stretch the beginnings of our spider’s new home.
“But it wasn’t.” Her voice is soft and bitter. “In one irrational moment, in an unspeakable war”—she turns to me—“Morris was dead.”
I barely breathe. I know she is working over a gash in her heart.
“We’re the same, Iris. First your mother to tuberculosis, and then your father. Another senseless act—waging war with a train and the other ghosts he lived with.” She shudders.
There’s more in her, so I wait, just like she would.
“I’m old.”
“Ma’am?”
“Kansas City is young and vibrant. So is Celeste. She’ll be around a long while.”
“You’re old and vibrant.”
She folds her gnarled hands and turns to me, a deep tenderness in her voice. “Lord knows Avery and I have discussed this, Iris. I’ve resisted because… don’t you see? If you live with us you will lose me, too.”
CHAPTER 21
Dear Celeste,
How are you? I am fine.
I am going to give the Bootery to you. I sure hope you like it.
Dumb.
Dear Miss Celeste Simmons,
After consulting the attorney regarding my father’s Last Will and Testament, I constitute, devise, and bequeath the Bootery to you.
You may also have any of his appurtenances and trappings, except his slippers. As the sole proprietor of the store, perhaps slippers would be a lofty accouterment to incorporate into your inventory.
Dumb, with spelling problems.
Dear Celeste,
I’m very sorry you are all alone and lonely, but remember, you are also young and vibrant. You will come out just fine even though I am not living with you.
Dear Celeste,
After searching my soul, I have decided to stay at the Nesbitts’ and raise chickens. I hope you understand.…
I sit at Mama’s little secretary desk. Balls of crumpled stationery dot the floor. It’s hard to concentrate. Instead of clucks and the wind whining through the window casements, I hear the drips and murmurs of Atchison. A different house, a different song.
Henry taps up behind me.
“The most horrid letter is still better than the telephone or telling her to her face. The sooner she gets this, the better,” I say, turning around to Mrs. Nesbitt. “I truly think she could do a good job with that store. Dr. Nesbitt thinks so too. She’s got the personality. Daddy was really successful, and he had that same type of personality. I don’t think she’s going to mourn and moan for long, unless…” I lower my voice. “Unless she figures out a way to cash in on sympathy customers.”
Mrs. Nesbitt sniffs.
“That was awful,” I say. “I’m sorry. I…”
“I thought it the moment she climbed up the train steps with a twisted ankle. She’s tougher than I’d first thought. Determined.”
“It would be awful tripping around on a sprained ankle pretending you are okay… always hurting and pretending you are okay.”
“We all do it,” Mrs. Nesbitt says.
August 25, 1926
Dear Celeste,
I have several things to say.
First, I am not moving to Kansas City. The Nesbitts have agreed to be my guardians and I am going to live with them in Wellsford.
Secondly, I have gone over my father’s Last Will and Testament, and even though it was not signed, I want you
to have the Bootery. Shoppers will like your handsome display windows and your enthusiasm.
The attorney will send you a letter about some money to help you get on your feet for the next six months. Carl, the manager of the Atchison store, has agreed to talk with you about business issues if you want his help.
I will rent out the house in Atchison for now, until I decide if I am going to sell it. You can have any of Daddy’s belongings you want, except his slippers and agate marbles and pen.
Best regards,
Iris
P.S. Mrs. Nesbitt says she thinks you will be a fine career woman, an example to modern young girls who wish to manage a business of their own. She says the Bootery will be the most successful retail establishment on Petticoat Lane!!!
There’s only one shady spot in the letter: the part about Carl. But I know he’d help her if I asked him to. Carl has been great at managing Baldwin’s Shoes since he came out of the back room. Proof, he says, that customers truly do trust somebody—even with stained fingernails—who knows shoes from the inside out.
Leroy leans on the back fender of Dr. Nesbitt’s car. He has removed the legs from Mama’s secretary desk and wedged it, wrapped in a quilt, onto the backseat, leaving a small spot for me to sit on the way back to Wellsford. We lashed the drawers and the sliding compartments shut. Mama’s old papers and even a few books are still inside.
“So what’s next?” he asks. He looks ready to lift the whole house with me in it.
“Let me think… dead weight being your specialty and all.” He smiles, but I know down deep he hates for me to go. He called me a “complex animal” like it was a regal compliment. He also said that his mother said she remembered my mama was just beautiful.
I check my list, then point toward the house. “I need you to get the recipe card off the kitchen table, and Daddy’s marbles and slippers.”
We step onto the front porch. Leroy points up. “Did you want me to load that cobweb too?”
“Nope. The spider stays. But I do need you to get Mama’s hair.”
“Pardon me?”
“Unless it’s too heavy. It’s in my room wrapped in a dresser scarf.”
Crossing the Tracks (9781416997054) Page 12
