Lies in White Dresses

by Sofia Grant

  “And . . . if it helps, she did talk about Reno, to me. Not often. Usually in the winter, when we walked up to the top of Russian Hill to see the sun turn red over the ocean, and she’d tell me about the seasons changing—how she missed that. She told me how her mother used to save the prettiest leaves from the yard, and she and Vi would string them on thread and hang them in the kitchen as decorations. And how they would search for the first daffodil shoots in the spring.”

  “Thank you, Francie,” Charlie said haltingly. “I do want to know, whatever you can tell me. It helps.”

  “Charlie, you do know that your mother never sold the house? The one she grew up in?”

  “I thought they sold it years ago. I remember her talking about it with Dad.”

  “Your father wanted to, but your mother refused. He gave in when she promised it wouldn’t cost him anything, that she’d hire caretakers to maintain it in exchange for living there for free. I think . . . I think she thought that someday you or Frank might like to have the house, even if it was just for vacations.”

  “Hell yes, I want it!” Charlie exclaimed. “Are you kidding? Do you think any of her old stuff is still there?”

  There he went, looking for clues. It broke Francie’s heart. “I don’t think so. I actually saw the house myself for the first time yesterday. June and I drove out and she found the spare key and—well, June had the idea to have the wake there. Since the cemetery is right next door, it couldn’t be more convenient.” She took his hand, suddenly unsure. “Maybe it was wrong of us to make those plans without consulting you and Frank. There’s still time—if you would rather have it elsewhere, the funeral director is quite accommodating. I’m sure he’ll be glad to help with the arrangements.”

  “No,” Charlie said, squeezing her hand. “That was a great idea. I think Mom would like it. Could you show me?”

  “Yes, of course. We can go out there tomorrow morning. There’s still a lot to do—we need to choose the casket, and there’s the matter of a headstone. We’re still trying to get in touch with some of Vi’s distant relatives and your parents’ friends who haven’t heard. June will need an estimate for the caterers. Oh, and we’ll need to find a valet because there’s no parking at the house, just the field next to it. And I think June’s made an appointment with the florist for tomorrow too—unless you’d like to make those decisions?”

  It was a bit of a dirty trick to play on the poor boy, but by overwhelming him with the details she was counting on Charlie to realize that he couldn’t simply send June packing as his father wanted him to do.

  “Oh. That’s—no, I don’t think I should interfere, since you’ve accomplished so much already. Francie, I didn’t realize . . . I had no idea there was so much to do. I should have, though—I deal with those sorts of details every day for our clients, and yet . . .”

  “It’s all right, dear,” Francie said, patting his arm. “You just come along to make the big decisions, and let us handle the rest. You don’t need to be worrying about the little things at a time like this.”

  “Thank you.” Charlie looked exhausted. “I honestly don’t know what we would do without you. Mom deserves—she deserves—”

  He was getting choked up again, so Francie said briskly, “She deserves the best we can do, and she shall have it. Oh, one other thing, we thought we would hire a pianist to play during the luncheon. We found some sheet music in the house that belonged to your mother.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “Good, then I’ll just confirm with her, shall I? I can do that this afternoon, before dinner.”

  “God, it will be good to see Alice.”

  “Well, you won’t have to wait very long,” Francie said. “Here she comes now.”

  Chapter 35

  June

  They were walking across the parking lot, laughing together over something Alice had said, when a tall, curly-haired man in work clothes came running toward them with Francie following behind. He picked Alice up and swung her around before putting her back down, both of them laughing. He made sure she had her balance before he let go. “I’m so glad to see you, you have no idea. Also, you’re looking mighty pretty.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “Coming from someone who used to call me Caterpillar Face, I’ll take that with a grain of salt.”

  The young man turned to June. “Hello, you must be June. I’m Charlie Carothers. I’m grateful for everything you’re doing for my family.”

  He shook her hand rather formally; his was callused and strong.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” June stammered, pulling back her hand in embarrassment. “I mean, it’s my pleasure. I mean, not my pleasure, obviously, because it’s such a terrible thing that happened—”

  “June has been such a help to Mother,” Alice interrupted, with a wink, saving her from further embarrassment. “And she’s terribly clever.”

  “Francie told me,” Charlie said, still watching June. “Obviously, my father will compensate you for your time and effort. Are the accommodations here adequate for you and your daughter?”

  June saw Francie exchange a look with Alice, smirking knowingly.

  “Oh yes, Mr. Carothers, they’re very nice,” June said cautiously, wondering if he was being sarcastic. The suite was obviously much more extravagant than they deserved; maybe he was angry that she was still there. Except he seemed so genuinely kind, and he and Alice were obviously close.

  “Call me Charlie, please, since we’ll be working together on this. Francie has told me how much there is on your to-do list, and I’m ready to roll up my sleeves.”

  “You should put him to work calling the rest of the people on your list,” Francie prompted, seeing how uncertain June was feeling. “Perhaps you could get it for him? He’s staying at the Mapes; he can make some calls tonight.”

  “Oh yes, of course. I’ll just run upstairs—I’ll be right back.”

  As June hurried toward the front door, she overheard them talking behind her.

  “Pick up your jaw, Charlie,” Alice said. “You look like a dog staring in the butcher shop window!”

  Chapter 36

  June folded the list carefully and stuffed it into one of the hotel envelopes, wishing she’d had time to copy it over more neatly, and headed back downstairs.

  Charlie was a surprise. Unlike his pale, slender mother, he was a strapping man of well over six feet, with dark curls falling into his eyes and the shadow of a beard. He had big scarred hands like a carpenter, but he’d held hers delicately, as though he was afraid to hurt her.

  June wasn’t used to talking to men. Since meeting Stan the summer after high school graduation six years ago, she’d learned to say little and keep her eyes on the ground, lest she accidentally spark his temper. Stan didn’t tolerate any attention from other men, even someone as harmless as the man behind the butcher counter or one of the deacons at church.

  Since spotting him that first night at the Sky Room, June had been on edge. Too late, she’d realized how he’d tracked her to Reno—she had given the motel her phone number so they could call back and confirm her reservation, and they must have called again the day she left. Stan, discovering her missing, had stayed home from work that day waiting for her to come back—and then, after learning what she’d done, driven to Reno like a bat out of hell.

  Still, that didn’t explain how he’d known she was at the Sky Room. She’d gone over and over it in her mind but couldn’t figure it out. At least he thought she was staying at the Twilight Inn, but once he realized that she had never checked in, it was only a matter of time before he tracked her down. When it came to June, her husband was relentless.

  Charlie was the sort of man who made June wonder what she’d ever seen in Stan. He wasn’t bad-looking, and he’d turned on the charm at first, and that was all it took—by the time June realized that it had been an act to win her over, they were already married, and she was expecting. So maybe she shouldn’t trust her first impressions of people,
but Charlie seemed genuinely polite. And funny too, the way he’d treated Alice. June had almost been envious of his attention to Alice, though clearly they were like brother and sister. To think she had been afraid Charlie would be angry to find her still staying in his mother’s room! Instead, he’d asked her if it was “adequate”—as if a girl like her could hope for anything half as nice.

  The two families had shown her nothing but kindness and generosity—Alice hadn’t let her see the bill from the dress shop, but the three dresses, suit, cardigan, and two pairs of shoes had to have cost a fortune. They were trusting her with planning the service, and that trust was even more precious than money. But what would they do if they knew she was a magnet for disaster, that Stan would stop at nothing to get her back? What would she do if he tried to disrupt the service or threatened those around her? Was she a terrible person for staying, when they might end up getting pulled into her troubles at a time like this?

  Down in the garden, Alice and Charlie were seated on the bench talking animatedly. When Charlie saw June, he jumped up and smiled.

  “Here,” June said, thrusting the envelope at him. “I’ve already talked to the ones I’ve crossed off, and there’s a tally at the bottom—I’m sorry it isn’t neater.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Charlie said, folding the envelope and stuffing it into his shirt pocket. “Thank you. And, June . . . it occurs to me that, with Alice and Francie having dinner with Arthur tonight, you might find yourself without plans, and, well . . . there are apparently several very nice restaurants in town.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “You’re sure you’re not too tired? From that long drive?”

  Charlie reddened. “No, actually—I seem to have got my second wind.”

  “Oh, well, in that case—you may as well have dinner with him, June,” Alice said. “He can be sweet, though he does require a great deal of patience.”

  Charlie shot her a scowl before turning back to June. “I only meant so we could discuss plans, of course,” he said. “To see how I might help.”

  “That’s very kind,” June said, “but I’ve got to pick up my daughter from her sitter.”

  “I completely understand,” Charlie said. “Forgive my thoughtlessness. Perhaps another time. But tomorrow morning, will you be returning to the house? Because I could meet you there and we could discuss everything. At the house.”

  “That would be fine,” June said. Then she found herself saying, “Mrs. Swanson serves sherry in the lounge every afternoon. I mean, if you would like to talk there for a bit. I don’t need to pick Patty up for another hour.”

  “He’d love to,” Alice said. “It’d be just the thing. I’m so sorry I won’t be able to join you, but I need to freshen up before dinner.”

  “Alice, thank you so much for taking me shopping,” June said. “It was really too generous.”

  “You’ve given us all a respite from our sadness.” Alice leaned in and kissed June on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I’m sure. Good night, Monkey Butt.”

  Charlie and June watched her go in awkward silence.

  “About that,” Charlie said. “It’s—well, it was a childhood nickname. I don’t even remember how it got started.”

  “It’s all right,” June said. “My parents used to call me June Bug.”

  “Somehow, that seems slightly nicer.” Charlie cleared his throat and offered his arm. “Shall we, then?”

  Inside, the guard looked up from his textbook. “Good evening, Mrs. Samples,” he said. “You’ll need to sign in your guest.”

  “Oh—of course.” She remembered the way Francie had introduced her to Alice. “Mickey, may I present Charlie Carothers, Mrs. Carothers’s son. And, Charlie, this is Mickey . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your last name.”

  “It’s Walsh, ma’am,” Mickey said.

  “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mickey,” Charlie said formally, shaking Mickey’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you, sir. If you could just sign the book . . .”

  “Of course.” His signature was barely more than a squiggly line that ended in a flourish.

  A group of ladies waited in the lobby for Clyde to bring the car around to take them to whatever tonight’s activity was. June felt them watching her as she and Charlie passed. It’s because they can’t believe a man like him would be with a girl like me, she thought, automatically looking down in shame—until she remembered that she was wearing a suit that cost fourteen dollars and forty-nine cents and was every bit as nice as anything they were wearing.

  Could it really be that easy? she wondered. There had never been a time when she’d been confident in her appearance. Whenever they were in public, her mother had covered her own mouth when she smiled to hide her crooked teeth. Her father had waited at the end of the line to greet the pastor after church, embarrassed by his old suit. June had absorbed their self-consciousness until it was as familiar as her own skin. She’d learned to make herself invisible, accepting her place among the overlooked, even as her brothers had rebelled. Donny and Mike had both dropped out after fifth grade and had trouble with the law before getting jobs at the plant and settling down, but June had graduated high school with good marks and started secretarial school with high hopes, thinking she might finally do something to distinguish herself.

  But then Stan Wentlandt, a young salesman with a company that made siding, had noticed her one sunny day, sitting on the steps of the trade school on their lunch break, and how could she resist? He was the first man ever to see something special when he looked at her, other than her father, who’d died the year before from a heart attack. Her mother, struggling to feed the two of them on his meager pension, had been overjoyed that Stan had a good job with a company car, and when Stan proposed after only three months, it felt like luck she didn’t deserve.

  But the job didn’t last—nor did any of the ones that followed, due to Stan’s temper, and before long June was an exhausted young mother not so different from her own, once again invisible as she went about her errands, and tried to keep up the house, and coaxed vegetables from the garden to supplement Stan’s intermittent paychecks. By the time she’d found the courage to leave him, she had forgotten that she’d ever been anything but invisible.

  But here, sitting in a fancy room with a handsome man, wearing beautiful clothes, a tiny spark caught inside June, and she felt the stirrings of hope.

  “So,” Charlie said, after he’d poured them each a tiny glass of sherry and they’d taken seats in the corner at a little table under a sconce that gave off soft golden light. There was no one else in the lounge, as it was nearly dinnertime. “Francie has told me that you’re arranging the food and flowers and everything for the reception?”

  “Yes,” June said. “I can show you the receipts if you like—I’ve kept detailed records.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary. Would you like to tell me what you’ve got planned?”

  “Well, once I saw the cottage, and Francie told me how your mother used to talk about it, it gave me the idea to serve the luncheon in the kitchen and put tables in the front room and open up the patio so people can go outside if they like,” she said. “Francie thinks we won’t have more than thirty people, since it’s so far for people to travel and—” And there had been so little notice, due to the nature of Vi’s death—but she could hardly say that to Charlie, could she? “And so I rented these little round tables, and I thought I could set a board on the radiator in the kitchen and cover it with a cloth to make it nice and serve the food there. I found a bolt of the sweetest flowered cotton sateen in a shop downtown and the salesgirl gave me a discount for buying the entire bolt, and I hired a lady to cut and hem it for the tables.” The fabric was printed with tiny sprays of violets, a detail that June had thought was perfect at the time, but now she wasn’t sure—maybe it wasn’t sophisticated enough, or maybe people would be offended that she hadn’t gone with plain white.

  “I ordered sandwiches and littl
e cakes,” she went on. “There’s going to be ham and chicken salad and—and another, I can’t remember, and they’ll deliver two large coffee urns as well. Oh, and I’ll make tea the day before for iced tea, and I need to have ice delivered. Did you know your grandfather delivered ice? Oh, what am I saying, of course you did. Virgie found two steel tubs in the basement here, and I cleaned them and they look good as new, and we can use them to ice down bottles of lemonade and ginger ale.”

  “June,” Charlie said, but she didn’t dare let him talk until she’d told him everything, because if he criticized her efforts she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get it out.

  “There’s a piano that your mother used to play, and it was actually in tune, and Francie found someone to play during the luncheon. I thought some small bouquets would look nice, to set on the tables. Of course there will be the flowers from the funeral too—I haven’t finalized those yet, but maybe you’d like to choose? And people will probably send more, of course, but they might like to see them at the cemetery, on those little stands . . .”

  She was aware that she was beginning to prattle, but Charlie was watching her with what looked like consternation, and it made her nervous. Was she making a fool of herself—had she gotten everything terribly wrong? Or worse—did he hate the idea of having the luncheon in the little house when all he’d ever known was luxury?

  “June,” he said more firmly, interrupting her. “You’ve put a lot of work into this, it’s obvious. But you needn’t have economized. I’m more than happy to pay for the very best you can find.”

  “But I did,” she said, crestfallen. “Find the best, I mean. I asked the hotel owner for the best bakery, the best delicatessen—”

  “But you’re doing so much yourself,” he said. “A caterer could take care of all of it—the tables and linens, the plates and glassware and the food. And they’ll send people to help serve—there’s no reason you should be worrying about that, plus they’ll clean up after. And instead of crowding everyone into the house, why don’t we simply rent a tent? I can have my father send one, we use them all the time on the job—there are really nice ones that look elegant and provide protection from the elements.”