The Night the Lights Went Out

by Karen White

  So when you’re headed to Walmart to stock up on storm-preparedness items, don’t forget the bread and milk, but for goodness’ sake, leave the giant tub of hand soap on the shelf.

  • • •

  MERILEE

  Merilee sat at a small table by the window of Cups, the local coffee shop, and closed her laptop. She hadn’t been aware that Tammy had been fired. Not that she was surprised—Tammy was single and her students were young. Merilee just wasn’t sure how in this day and age a woman could be dismissed for such a transgression. Maybe it was parental pressure and the promise of a full salary leave. Regardless, she found no pleasure in the news. She had once liked Tammy Garvey, when she was still the enthusiastic and fresh-faced math teacher who made Lily love math. Merilee hated what Tammy had done, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate her. But that didn’t stop her from thinking ill thoughts or calling her bad names in her head.

  The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and baking muffins against the visual backdrop of oak tables and brick and wood walls and floors made the coffee shop feel homey and charming; it was the place everybody congregated, since the marketing-genius owners had strategically placed it in close proximity to three public schools and Windwood Academy.

  It was right after school drop-off, and Merilee used the opportunity to surreptitiously glance around at the clusters of moms at the various tables to see if any of them seemed to be reading the blog on their phones or other devices, or if any of them were trying not to stare or point. She could always tell when someone was talking about someone else, or trying to get them to look when they talked out of the sides of their mouths, as if moving their lips would give them away. And then the person being spoken to would pretend to admire the décor around the vicinity of where the object of the conversation happened to be.

  Luckily, all the Windwood moms seemed to be buzzing about that morning’s announcement at the parents’ meeting about the fall gala. It was the school’s biggest fund-raiser and also, according to Heather, the social event of the year. She was, of course, the head of the gala committee, and before the headmaster had even finished speaking Heather was already tapping people on the shoulder about being on the committee. Seeing the opportunity to bolt, Merilee had left before Heather could pull her into agreeing to do something she had absolutely no interest in or time to be involved with.

  She spotted Lindi at the door and waved her over. “Sorry I’m late,” Lindi said as she sat down. “I got a call during the morning meeting about an issue at work and I just now hung up.” She dumped her large tote on the floor and smiled at the enormous ceramic coffee cup in front of her. “Wow, thanks. How did you know I like it black?”

  “I passed Jenna and her class on the way to the media center as I left the meeting and asked her. I’d seen you leave and thought you might be a little late.”

  Lindi took a long and grateful sip from her cup. “I think you’re my new BFF.”

  Merilee leaned forward. “You might have to fight Heather for that position.”

  Lindi’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

  “That’s what she said at her party, but she probably says that to everyone. She has a lot of BFFs, from what I can tell. Or maybe she didn’t want me to sue her because of Lily. Although I’m pretty sure Lily hurt herself after Heather said that.” She tapped her fingers on the lid of her laptop. “Have you read the most recent blog post?”

  “Yep. Read it this morning over breakfast.” She raised the cup to her lips, her eyes thoughtful. “Nothing really inflammatory, I don’t think. Just observations—all pretty accurate, if you want my opinion. I liked the part about euphemisms—I might have actually laughed. And the writer is vague enough that not everybody is aware of who’s being discussed—or they don’t recognize themselves, which is more likely. Most people don’t see themselves the way other people do. Still no idea who might be writing it?”

  Merilee shook her head, her gaze casually scanning the other occupants of the crowded room, smiling in response to a few waves from other moms from school—including her new carpool partner, Sharlene Cavanaugh. They weren’t starting with their new driving schedule until the following week, but Merilee had her doubts. For starters, Sharlene had problems remembering Merilee’s children’s names and kept referring to Colin as Connor. Her optimism wasn’t strengthened by the fact that this morning Sharlene was wearing flip-flops that appeared to be several sizes smaller than her own feet, as if she’d forgotten to put on shoes when she left the house and had found her daughter’s in the backseat and made do.

  “I don’t have a clue,” Merilee said. “I don’t really know anybody well enough to guess. I know Heather the best, but she’s so involved I can’t imagine her having the time to write a blog and also squeezing in time to sleep.”

  Lindi took another sip of coffee, holding the giant cup with both hands. “Well, it’s a very good thing you’re on Heather’s nice list. Your life—and your kids’ lives—would be torture if you weren’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Merilee leaned forward so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  Lindi shrugged. “Oh, you know. Invitations get ‘lost’ in the mail so you or your kids are never seen socially, or the committee you wanted to head either disappears or gets absorbed into a committee that’s already being run by you know who. It’s silly, and we’re totally too old for this kind of behavior, but it happens. Heather likes to be in charge and call all the shots, and most of the time she does a really good job and tries to be as inclusive as she can—she even invited me to be in on the selection process for the new middle school science teacher, although I think it’s because I’m on the board. But still. A little diversity would be nice.”

  Lindi turned to see who’d just come in the shop, then looked back at Merilee. “Dealing with some of these moms makes me feel like I’m back in high school, you know? Hoping to be invited to the popular table to sit with the mean girls. I have a law degree from Yale, for crying out loud, yet I always feel as if I don’t quite measure up.” She sat back in her chair, frowning. “Sorry—I don’t mean to dump on you. It’s just that Bailey has been giving Jenna a hard time—you know, excluding her from recess games and telling her where she can and cannot sit in every class they share together. It’s just that in my experience, mean girls always learn it from their mothers, who were undoubtedly mean girls when they were younger.”

  The coffee on Merilee’s tongue suddenly tasted bitter, but she held it in her mouth, unable to swallow. A memory of a much-younger version of herself on a school bus headed to summer camp, a plump brown-haired girl with thick eyebrows sitting next to her, the girl’s sweaty thick thighs pressed against hers, had erased for a moment the coffee shop and the groups of women that surrounded her. But not the memory of the horrible things she’d said to that girl who’d made the mistake of sitting next to her. Things about the girl’s appearance that, in retrospect, Merilee knew she’d had no control over. But she’d said the words. Had even made the girl cry, forever branding the episode onto Merilee’s subconscious, from where it would emerge from time to time to keep her up at night. Merilee forced down her coffee and managed not to cough.

  The sound of metal scraping against cement brought everyone’s attention to the window facing the parking lot, where a giant and very ancient baby blue Lincoln had rolled its enormous front end over the sidewalk. The driver took a while to open the door, probably because the door was bigger than most cars nowadays and built of solid steel.

  Lindi was already standing. “I should go help her.”

  Merilee looked back at the car and thought she recognized the white puff of hair over the steering wheel. “Is that . . . ?”

  Merilee knew Sugar had a car, but it was usually kept in the carport on the other side of Sugar’s house from hers, so she hadn’t recognized it.

  “Sugar Prescott,” Lindi said, heading toward the door with Merilee close behind her. “I
’ve offered a thousand times to take her car shopping for a more manageable car. Sadly, it’s in perfect working order and she sees no need to replace it until it falls apart.”

  “How do you know Sugar?” Merilee asked.

  “Everybody knows Sugar. We both volunteer at the senior center’s jumble sale twice a year and are in charge of organizing all the donations. She finds a lot of good deals there, apparently. She has quite the selection of Christmas sweaters now.”

  Before Merilee could raise her eyebrows or question Lindi further, they’d reached the car and Lindi was holding open the car door. “Sugar—good morning!”

  Sugar frowned up at her. “It was until I got here. Could barely find parking—why are all these people here?”

  Merilee extended her hand to help her out, then quickly withdrew it when Sugar simply glowered at it. They waited a few moments as Sugar rocked herself a few times to get up enough momentum to propel her from her seat.

  “There was a meeting at the school, so the moms are running about an hour later than usual,” Lindi explained.

  Sugar stepped up on the sidewalk and stopped to dig for something in her purse as Merilee shut the car door. “Let me see—maybe I can come back tomorrow.” She pulled out a clipped coupon from an ancient purse that seemed to be of the same vintage as the car and thrust it at Merilee. “When does this expire?”

  “Today.”

  Sugar sighed heavily as she looked through the window at the long line of patrons waiting to be served. “I don’t even like coffee.”

  Lindi and Merilee’s gazes met over Sugar’s head.

  “But every Monday there’s a free cup of coffee coupon for senior citizens in the Sweet Apple Herald, so I come here once a week to use the coupon. Hate to see it go to waste.”

  Lindi pulled open the door to Cups. “Why don’t I wait in line and get your coffee while you sit at our table with Merilee?”

  Sugar pressed her lips together as she considered. “I suppose that would work.” Merilee began to lead her to the table when Lindi asked, “How do you like your coffee?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It tastes terrible no matter how you try to disguise it.”

  Merilee held out a chair for Sugar before sitting down, aware of the glances sent in their direction. “I can’t thank you enough for letting Colin use the bird books at the house. I think it’s distracting him from looking for that dog. Yesterday, he saw an indigo bunting. He didn’t know what it was until he looked it up. He really needs some binoculars—I just keep forgetting to go shop for them. The stores that sell things like that aren’t on my usual round of errands.”

  Sugar remained straight-backed in her chair, and it seemed as if she might actually be offering a small smile. “Good to know that’s one less child who’s not rotting his brain on computer games.”

  Merilee just smiled, unsure how to respond.

  Sugar smoothed the flats of her hands against the wooden surface of the table. “I sure was glad to see this place built.”

  “I thought you disliked all the new development,” Merilee said, wincing as she took a sip from her now ice-cold coffee.

  “I do.” She was silent for a moment as her face softened in a contemplative look Merilee was becoming familiar with. “But this was where Curtis Brown’s family lived. In a little house smack-dab on this spot. Burned years ago, which I can’t say many people were sad to see. Mr. Brown had already been run out on a rail after he stole from the church offering box. Curtis had taken over running the farm, but he was so lazy he couldn’t catch his breath if it didn’t come naturally. I saw Mrs. Brown out in the field at harvest and planting times more than I ever saw Curtis, his little sisters running around half-starved because they were as poor as gully dirt and Mrs. Brown was too proud to ask for charity.”

  Sugar shook her head, her gaze focused at the window, the blue sky reflected in her glasses so they looked like a mirror on the world. “Mrs. Brown got sick one winter, and they had no wood for burning and wouldn’t accept any from her neighbors. Then she died and those little girls got sent to the orphanage down in Atlanta. Or maybe it was to distant relations—I can’t remember. I just know we never saw hide or hair of them again.”

  “That’s so sad. There wasn’t anyone closer who could take them in?”

  Sugar shook her head slowly. “Times were hard. We barely had enough to feed and clothe our own families. Farms were failing every day, it seemed, and people were starving. We took care of Lamar after his daddy died, and my daddy tried to take care of Curtis and those little girls after his mama got sick, but Curtis didn’t want us taking care of anything, and I was fine with that.”

  Merilee looked behind Sugar and spotted Lindi approaching the front of the line, wishing she’d hurry. She enjoyed Sugar’s stories, although it had become clear to her that neither one of them was comfortable in the telling, and maybe even for the same reason. It was too easy to be dragged down into someone else’s tragedies when you were barely treading water yourself.

  “Whatever happened to Curtis?” Merilee asked, unable to stop herself.

  Sugar’s blue eyes darkened behind her glasses, her hands now clasped tightly on the table in front of her. “He joined the army, just like everyone else. Don’t know what became of him, just that he never came back here after the war.” Her eyes met Merilee’s, and there was something in them, something unreadable and foreign. Something Merilee recognized but could not name.

  She almost sighed with relief when Lindi reappeared with three cups of coffee, one in a to-go cup, and an assortment of sugar and creamers she pulled from her purse and dumped on the table. “I’m sorry to leave so soon—but I need to get back to the office to deal with an emergency. Good to see you, Sugar—and I’ll talk to you later,” she said to Merilee.

  She held the door open for someone, and Merilee gave an internal groan as Heather Blackford entered, looking regal in purple workout gear. She wondered if she only imagined Sugar groaning, too. Heather spotted them immediately and headed to their table.

  “Sugar!” she said, leaning down to kiss the older woman on her cheek despite Sugar’s body language, which clearly stated she wished she were anywhere else but there. “It’s so good to see you. This is so cute seeing the two of you together—landlady and tenant. It must be nice to finally find a tenant you get along with,” she said to Sugar, who merely stared back at her with compressed lips.

  Turning to Merilee, she said, “My first gala committee meeting is Thursday evening at seven thirty at my house in Prescott Estates. I’ll put your name on the list at the gate so you’ll have access. I’d like you to head the auction committee because I can tell you’re smart and we really need a smart person to handle the solicitation of donations.”

  “But I—”

  A look of concern crossed Heather’s face. “You do want to help, don’t you? This is for your children’s school and for all the wonderful programs that will give them what they need to succeed in life. All of us moms need to do our part.”

  “Yes, I realize, but my work schedule—”

  “I already asked Lily and she said you don’t work Thursday evenings, so that’s when I’ve scheduled all the gala committee meetings. See? It’s all settled. See you at seven thirty on Thursday.”

  She smiled and started to leave before remembering something else.

  “By the way, Sugar, your back tire is flat, so you might want to get that fixed. So glad we could talk. Bye-bye,” she said, before turning around and heading toward another table, a short strip of toilet paper clinging to her sneaker.

  Merilee half stood to go tell her, but Sugar held her back with a surprisingly strong arm. “Don’t you dare. She broke Wade’s heart in a bad way, and that’s just karma.”

  Merilee had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing. “Can I call someone to come fix your tire? I know how to change a tire; it’s just
that I’m wearing my last clean work blouse.”

  Sugar sighed heavily. “Just take me home. I’ll call Wade when I get there. A buddy of his has an auto repair place—they can figure out what to do with it.”

  “I don’t have to be at work until one o’clock, so that works with my schedule,” Merilee said. “Thanks for asking,” she added, knowing the sarcasm would be lost on the older woman. She indicated Sugar’s untouched coffee. “We can wait until you’re finished.”

  Sugar wrinkled her nose. “Ask for a paper cup that I can take home so I can drink it later.”

  Without questioning her logic, Merilee stood and broke into line at the front to ask for a travel cup before returning to the table to transfer the coffee. She held the door for Sugar, then followed her down the steps, keeping close to her elbow in case the older woman tripped, but being very careful not to let Sugar know.

  As Merilee unlocked the minivan, Sugar pointed up to the sky. “I do think that’s a brown-headed cowbird.”

  Merilee followed her gaze, spotting the glossy black bird with the chocolate head and gray beak.

  “They’re parasitic birds. Jimmy told me that—because they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and hope the other birds will raise them.” Sugar leaned against the side of the minivan, as if the memories were weighing her down. “That was the best part about this particular patch of land—all the different birds Jimmy found here. There were thick woods back then, more than we had, even. When Jimmy wasn’t working on our farm or doing his chores, he’d come over here. Couldn’t ever pass up an opportunity to make a check mark in his book when he saw another bird.”