Return to Appleton

by Sylvia Bambola

  A trip to Eckerd would do her good.

  Geri Bickford was still rattled. She couldn’t get over Virginia being gone. Gone like a puff of smoke. Twice she had reached for the phone to call her. Once to tell her about something she had seen on TV, and another time to ask about the mail she had gotten regarding her homeowners’ insurance.

  She stared at the collection of jewelry laid out neatly across the dressing table. Mostly antique pieces that had been in the family for generations. She couldn’t believe Virginia had left them to her rather than Cutter. Maybe Virginia figured he’d turn around and sell them. Not that Virginia was terribly sentimental about the jewelry. But it would kill her to think Cutter would sell the jewels for half their value, just for some quick cash.

  Kill her. Poor choice of words. A thing like that wouldn’t kill her. Not like the cancer that had ravaged her body. That had killed her. And now Virginia Press was dead. Geri’s mind tried to wrap itself around those words, tried to translate them into something tangible. What did that mean—Virginia was dead? It meant Geri didn’t have a best friend to call every day. It meant no one to go to the movies with. Or to dinner. Or shopping. No one to tell her to “ignore the old battle-axe” every time Pearl Owens got Geri’s goat. It meant loss.

  Another loss in her life.

  Geri had been sure that Virginia would outlast them all. Virginia was strong, courageous, independent. All traits Geri felt she lacked. It was Virginia who had helped Geri pick up the pieces when she discovered her marriage was a sham. It was Virginia who had helped Geri survive all the vicious gossip when the town learned that too. It was Virginia who’d helped her through those years when Gloria seemed to love only her father. “She’ll come around,” Virginia would say. It was Virginia who’d stood by Gavin Bickford’s grave and stopped Geri from spitting on it in front of the whole town. “No sense giving the old battle-axe ammunition,” she’d said. And it was Virginia who’d helped see her through that tough year when Gloria went running off to Eckerd.

  And now Virginia Press was dead.

  Geri carefully picked up each piece of jewelry and placed it cautiously in her red-velvet-lined box. She would trade all of these and more for another day with Virginia. Now she would have to face Pearl Owens’s vicious wagging tongue alone. Already the rumors were circulating like one of those chain letters. She knew what Pearl was saying, and some of the others too. That both she and Gloria had manipulated a dying woman for profit.

  Geri snapped the jewelry box shut and returned it to its proper place in the closet. The truth was, this gift was trouble on several fronts. Now she’d have to take out a safety-deposit box at the bank. She’d never worried before about someone coming to her house and stealing the few good pieces of jewelry she actually had scattered among her costume junk. But since the whole town knew about Geri’s windfall, and with strangers moving into Appleton every day, she couldn’t leave Virginia’s expensive stuff around like bait.

  Yes, that’s what she’d do tomorrow. See Mr. Hotchkins about a safety-deposit box. She’d do that right after she went to see her mother. Everyone knew death came in threes. No telling when her mother would up and follow Virginia. And before that happened, Geri was going to get some things off her chest.

  Chapter Eighteen

  GERI BICKFORD STEPPED OUT of the car and braced herself against the cold November wind. She shuddered as much from nerves as from the chill and slammed the door of her gold Volvo. The large Tiffany-set opal on her right hand caught the sun, making her finger look like it was on fire. How foolish to wear Virginia’s ring, thinking … hoping … it would give her the courage and grit of her friend, or at least inspire an anemic resemblance.

  Absently, she brought her hands to her head, then ran her fingers over her hair, testing to see that all bobby pins were in place and that the French twist was still firmly tucked. Then she adjusted the collar of her brown wool blazer, bringing it up closer around her ears. She needed to get out of the cold. Still, she didn’t move but remained on the sidewalk staring up at the house. She hadn’t been inside since the fire.

  Hannah Quinn’s just like everyone else.

  How many times had Virginia said that?

  She’s no plaster saint, and you’re not going to burn in hell if you say a few harsh words to her.

  Virginia had said that too; had urged Geri for years to have it out with her mother. But Virginia never took Pearl Owens into account, or what Pearl would do if she got wind of a family feud. But then, Virginia never took anyone into account when she wanted to do something.

  Geri fingered the opal. Why did everyone love her mother so? It didn’t seem fair. Even now, when Hannah seemed to have lost her faculties, they still loved her, while they resented Geri for her own multiple failures. She pushed her collar away from her neck and pulled down hard on the edges of her blazer.

  All right, enough of this.

  High-heeled boots tapped out Geri’s progress up the sidewalk and stopped at the crumbling concrete steps. Her eyes scanned the peeling clapboards, the shutter that hung from a single hinge, windows that looked like they hadn’t been washed in a decade. She could almost hear Pearl’s whisper of disapproval. She shrugged it off and with a well-manicured finger rang the bell and waited.

  A pudgy white-haired woman, wearing a flour-covered, red-checked apron, opened the door. “Oh, my, my, my! Look who’s here! Come in, dear! Come in!”

  Instead of feeling elated over her mother’s reception, Geri felt angry. It irked her that her mother didn’t seem that surprised to find her estranged daughter at the door. And the fact that Hannah hadn’t even bothered to ask her why she was there frosted her cake even more.

  Still, she trotted obediently behind her mother, observing the stacks of newspapers on the living room floor, the inch-thick dust on the furniture, the pile of laundry needing folding on the couch. Maybe she had been wrong in agreeing to move Hannah into a condo rather than to Clancy County.

  The kitchen was even worse, with dishes piled high in the sink and almost every inch of counter space jammed with baking pans and measuring cups and flour and sugar and all sorts of baking additives. No doubt another batch of cookies for the migrant kids. She wondered if Hannah knew Gloria had been paying her grocery bills. Maybe Geri would add that to the list of things to tell her mother. But when she thought of how angry Gloria would be, Geri thought better of it. Things were just beginning to improve between her and Gloria. It would be unwise, at this point, to test the mettle of their new relationship.

  Hannah fussed over one of the kitchen chairs, wiping it down with a dish towel as if someone important was about to sit on it. The action took some air out of Geri’s ballooning anger.

  “Here, dear, sit down, and I’ll make a nice cup of tea.” Hannah bustled over to the stove; then the sound of clanking pots and rattling china filled the kitchen. “I’ve got plenty of Earl Grey. Might even have some English Breakfast, if you prefer.”

  “Earl Grey is fine, Mom.”

  “How are you managing? I know Virginia’s death was a big loss for you.”

  Geri pushed away the red-covered One-Year Bible that sat on the table and put her folded hands in its place. “I don’t know why you never liked her. Maybe you’d care to explain that now?” She was surprised to hear her mother chuckle.

  “She was your friend. It doesn’t much matter anymore if I liked her or not, does it? Besides, I try never to speak ill of the dead.”

  “Well … I’m curious. I can’t see the harm of you telling me.”

  Hannah wiped her hands on her apron. “Now, Geri, I know you’re grieving over your loss, and I hurt for you too. You had a good friend in Virginia. But I also know you didn’t come here to this house, after you haven’t stepped foot in it for six months, just to ask me what I thought of Virginia Press.” Hannah turned on the stove and placed the kettle on the front burner. “No, dear, you look and sound as if you’ve come spoiling for a fight.”

  Geri leaned her elbo
ws on the table and frowned. How had she let her mother steal her thunder? How had she let her reverse the tables, where now Geri was on the defensive?

  “I know you have your grievances.” Hannah placed two mugs on the table, one in front of Geri, the other in front of a nearby empty chair.

  Geri stared at the crude sunflowers painted on each mug and recognized her ceramics project of a zillion summers ago. She marveled that her mother had kept them, then decided it was typical. Hannah Quinn probably had the first crayon drawing Geri had ever made, tucked in the attic somewhere, along with every drawing, sewing project, term paper, and the like that came after.

  “I know you’ve got grievances,” Hannah repeated. “And I know you’ve been holding on to those grievances for years. Guess you’ve finally come to get them off your chest.”

  Geri opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She was grateful when the kettle whistled and her mother was forced to return to the stove. She stared down at her opal. Virginia would be furious if she saw her now.

  “I imagine having Virginia die like that made you think of things like regrets and hurts, maybe resurrected past disappointments. Made you realize you didn’t have forever to straighten them out.”

  Geri’s hands came down hard on the table, causing the band of her ring to scrape against the wood. “That’s what makes you so infuriating! You’re always right, and you’re always so nice about it.”

  Hannah chuckled. “I’m your mother, Geri. I guess I know you better than anyone, except the Lord, of course.”

  “You told me not to marry Gavin. You warned me. You were right. You told me not to keep such a tight reign on Gloria, that I would lose her if I did. Right again. But why, why didn’t you help me when I came to you about Gavin? When I told you what he was doing? How he cheated on me every chance he got? Why did you make me go back? Why didn’t you let me stay here with you?” Tears oozed from Geri’s eyes like caulking from a window.

  “Because part of me feared the scandal, the shame. And for that, I ask your forgiveness. But there was another part of me that wanted you to overcome—to face your problems and overcome them. You wanted to divorce Gavin on the grounds of abandonment, not adultery. But you owed it to Gavin—but mostly yourself—to confront him. To lay the charges at his feet. To see if there was any way to salvage your marriage. I knew you still loved him. And even though I didn’t think Gavin had the character to make it work, for your sake I wanted you to try. But you didn’t.”

  Geri blotted her eyes with her fingers. “I went back, didn’t I? I tried my best to make it work.”

  “You went back and lived a lie.” Hannah picked up the steaming kettle and poured hot water into the sunflower mugs. “You gave up your integrity and Gavin’s for the sake of a little peace, for the sake of appearances.”

  “You know what Pearl Owens is like.”

  “Yes, I know what Pearl is like. But nothing you did stopped the talk. It was all wasted, your life of appeasement.”

  “That’s really cruel. And so unfair. Gloria thought her father walked on water. What was I supposed to do? Expose him? She would have hated me.”

  “And she hated you anyway.”

  Geri winced.

  “But only for a season.” Hannah pulled the box of Earl Grey from the cabinet and placed it on the kitchen table along with two spoons. “Gloria was angry and hurt. But she loves you, Geri. She’s always loved you. She just never felt that you loved her.”

  “I’ve tried to do what was best for her—to shield and protect her.”

  “Be honest now, Geri. It’s needed, and a long time in coming. You lived vicariously through your daughter. Transferred your fears onto her. You nearly destroyed the child.”

  Geri pulled a napkin from the porcelain dispenser and blew her nose. “I didn’t want her to be hurt as I was hurt. To suffer—”

  “We all suffer. It’s part of the human condition.” Hannah came up to her daughter and cupped her chin. “Sometimes the suffering is of our own making; sometimes it isn’t. And sometimes that’s how we learn best. Gloria’s got her own path to walk, and when a big-fisted problem comes from out of nowhere to knock her down, you can’t take that blow for her. Though you want to … oh, yes, though you desperately want to, would give anything, in fact, to take that pain on yourself … you can’t.”

  Geri looked into Hannah’s loving eyes and knew that her mother had been talking about her own pain, how much she had longed to step in and take some of those blows for Geri. When Hannah smiled knowingly, a wall crumbled between them, just like that, a wall that had been as high and tough and formidable as the Berlin Wall itself. With a twinkle in her eye, Hannah released her daughter and returned to the stove.

  “You know the thing that burns me? Really burns me?” Geri said, dropping a tea bag into the now-tepid water in her mug. “It’s that Gavin—that womanizing, unfaithful, lousy Gavin—has gotten off scot-free. Gloria still thinks he walked on water, and if I try to tell her he didn’t, she’d hate me all over again.”

  “She knows. I told her.”

  “What … did she say?” Geri’s voice trembled.

  “Nothing. But it helped her understand some things.”

  Geri punched the bag of Earl Grey with her spoon, dunking it beneath the water, then letting it bob up again. “I don’t know why I didn’t come here long ago and have this out. I guess because I was a coward. Or maybe I wasn’t ready to hear how right you were and how wrong I was.” Geri fished out the bag with her spoon. “It seems all my life I’ve been heading down one cliff after another, with you trying to stop me. And I resented you for it. I guess I’ve just been too proud to admit you were right. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.” She heard her mother chuckle and looked up.

  “Sometimes I’m my worst enemy too.”

  For the first time Geri smiled. “Impossible.”

  “No, really. For the past two years, I’ve been struggling to keep up this big old house. Nearly killing myself in the process. Too proud, too stubborn to admit it was just too much for me.”

  Geri laughed. “And you’re admitting it now.”

  Her mother nodded. “I’m ready to move to Willow Bend.”

  “For a while I was thinking of putting you into Clancy County.”

  “I know.”

  “It was just for spite. Just pure spite. I was mad at you—for turning me away … for trying to make me face things I didn’t want to … for a lot of things. I’m … sorry.”

  “I know, dear.”

  The next thing Geri knew, she was on her feet by the stove hugging and kissing her mother and feeling her mother’s soft, fleshy arms hug her back, then her mother’s rosemary-scented mouth kissing her cheeks. And Geri tingled with pure joy.

  The in-house auditor from the Appleton Savings Bank had been going over Paul and Wanda’s books for over two hours. Gloria was getting nervous. “How’s it going, Malcolm?” she finally asked.

  “It’s going.”

  “Well, does it look good? Will Mr. Hotchkins have any trouble approving the loan?”

  “I can’t speak for Mr. Hotchkins, Gloria.”

  “Just take a guess. You’ve done this before. You know if numbers add up to a good risk or not.”

  “I never guess about these things. Too many variables: location, credit rating, previous experience, that kind of thing. It’s not just about crunching numbers, you know. I do my part, then turn in my findings and let others do theirs. You’re going to have to wait like everyone else, till the process runs its course.”

  “Well, how long is that going to take?”

  “Don’t know.” By the way Malcolm laid out more pencils and repositioned his calculator, it looked as if he was going to be here for the duration.

  Gloria threw her hands in the air and caught sight of Wanda leaning against the wall by her desk, smiling. “Welcome to the wonderful world of the small business owner.”

  “I can’t believe all this paperwork,” Gloria said, walk
ing over to Wanda. “I filled out forms all night. And the information they want! My goodness, I’m surprised they didn’t ask for my dress size.” Gloria paused when she realized she was whining. “I guess I thought it was going to be easier.”

  Wanda chuckled. “Nothing’s ever easy. At least, nothing worthwhile. Relax, honey. It’s gonna be all right. You’ll see. Before you know it, you’ll be ordering me and Paul around like a couple of flunkies, and we’ll get our revenge by taking two-hour lunches.”

  “So you think Mr. Hotchkins will give me the loan?”

  “It’s in the bag. You’re gonna be Appleton Printers’ new owner. My first suggestion—buy yourself a case of Pepto-Bismol.”

  Gloria laughed and gave Wanda a hug. “I can’t believe how much I want this place.”

  “Well, God sure made a way, didn’t He now?”

  Yes, He had, but Gloria didn’t like remembering that someone had had to die in order for it to happen. She suddenly thought of the kernel of wheat falling to the ground. Death before life. Always death before life. She’d try to see that Virginia’s seed money produced a great harvest.

  “Hey, kiddo! I heard the good news.”

  Gloria turned to the familiar voice. She tried not to react when she saw Tracy walk into the print shop in skintight hip-hugger jeans, a belly shirt that fell only inches below her bra line, and above her navel, a tattoo of a long-stem rose that seemed to move when she did.

  “Congratulations. Everyone’s talking about how you’re going to buy this place.” Tracy gave the premises a once-over, and the look on her face seemed to say, “Why bother?” Absently, she picked her thumbnail. It was freshly painted in a red that matched her rose tattoo. “Can you step outside so we can talk?”

  Gloria hesitated. “Sure you won’t be cold?” It had to be fifty degrees outside.

  “The cold doesn’t bother me,” Tracy said, flipping her red hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head and laughing. But she gave her shirt a self-conscious tug.