Queen of Broken Hearts

by Cassandra King

  Even though it’s still hot outside, the twilight air heavy and damp, neither Lex nor I utter a word of protest when Zoe Catherine insists on our staying for a visit, then leads us to a bluff overlooking the creek bank, underneath the low-lying branches of a live oak. She wants to hear every detail of my meeting with George Johnson, since she missed it after losing track of time fishing. I’m so grateful Zoe hasn’t read the paper yet that I’m tempted to slip into her house and hide it before she has a chance to. At least we’ll be long gone then. I know Zoe Catherine well enough to know that she’ll pitch a fit when she sees the letter to the editor, and I don’t want to be in her presence when she does.

  Fortunately for us, a strong breeze blows across the creek, bringing the taste of salt as it scatters the mosquitoes and gnats that could make sitting outside impossible, no matter what time of day. This little bluff is one of Zoe’s favorite places, and she’s assembled a seating area of twig chairs out here, nestled under the sweeping branches of the oak as though they sprang from the tree and obligingly formed themselves into chairs for our pleasure.

  “Y’all sit tight till I get back,” Zoe says. “I’m gonna run inside and get us some of my scuppernong wine to go with that carrot cake you brought.” She’s her usual frisky self this afternoon, black eyes shining mischievously, and I’m also grateful that I didn’t bring the photograph. Again I wonder what on earth I was thinking. Zoe shuts down whenever Mack is mentioned, her eyes blank and her normally expressive face stilled, frozen in a mask of unresolved grief. She and her only child were estranged on and off for years, and death robbed her of any chance of reconciliation.

  Zoe Catherine pauses by Lex’s chair and nods toward a huge peacock that seems intent on exploring Lex’s feet. “Don’t you mind Genghis Khan,” she says. “He won’t hurt you.” The rest of her birds are still near the dock, searching the grounds for the last of the feed Zoe scattered. When Lex leans over as though to pat Genghis, Zoe slaps his hand away. “Watch it! He’ll peck the pure-tee shit out of you if you touch his head.”

  Lex blinks up at her, and I stifle a giggle. “You just told me he wouldn’t hurt me,” he reminds her.

  “Figured even a Yankee had sense enough not to pet them. They ain’t dogs.” Zoe unties the floppy hat that she’s let fall down her back and tries to shoo the peacock away, but he merely blinks his beady eyes at her indignantly before resuming his peck, peck, pecking at Lex’s work boots. The old bird is as large as a turkey, with his plumed train trailing at least five feet behind him. “Guess you’ve stepped on some of his food,” Zoe muses. “Either that or he’s gotten so old, he’s gone blind and thinks your shoe is his feeding dish.”

  “It’s certainly big enough,” I say with a laugh. Zoe Catherine keeps flapping her hat at the impervious Genghis even after Lex swears to her that the bird isn’t bothering him.

  “Ah! Here comes my namesake, Catherine the Great. Maybe she’ll distract him,” Zoe says, watching the approach of the peacock’s mate, a mousy, bedraggled peahen almost as old as Genghis. Zoe swears he’s been with her almost twenty years, though most of them live ten years at best. She names all of the birds and never loses track of them, which amazes me. The peafowls she calls after the more exotic historical figures, Gandhi, Marco Polo, Marie Antoinette, and the latest, the resplendent Queen of Sheba. Zoe renamed one Jesus Christ after he appeared to be dead one night only to revive at sunrise. Her lovely but less spectacular birds, the pheasants, she names for literary characters: Falstaff, Madame Bovary, David Copperfield, Rhett Butler, and Scarlett O’Hara. The ducks are politicians, Harry Truman, Huey Long, Strom Thurmond, and Big Jim Folsom, a colorful Alabama governor Zoe was close to.

  When Zoe Catherine disappears into the house to fetch the wine, Lex leans forward in the small twig chair where he’s wedged, watching her depart. Both the Queen of Sheba and Catherine the Great have not only failed to distract Genghis Khan but have now joined him in pulling on the laces of Lex’s boots as though they’re fat, juicy worms. As soon as Zoe is out of sight, Lex stomps his feet heavily and hisses at the birds, “Get lost, you pesky bastards.”

  “Lex!” First I try to grab Catherine the Great, then the Queen of Sheba, both of whom flap their wings and squawk in terror. I’ve seen Zoe hold them like babies, but the peahens elude my grasp and run away to the other birds clustered near the dock. Genghis backs away from Lex, who reaches down to retie his shoelace, muttering to himself. Just as Zoe appears with a tray of wineglasses and the carrot cake, a rustling sound comes from Genghis, and I clap my hands like Abbie does when one of the peacocks begins his display.

  “Hey, look, Lex.” I smile. “Genghis is showing off for you.”

  Genghis Khan’s magnificent iridescent plumes spread slowly upward as he cocks his small head to one side, beady eyes fastened on Lex for his reaction. Once the plumes are fully fanned out behind him, Genghis shivers and lets out a screech that always startles me, no matter how often I hear it. He then begins his dance, moving ponderously from one side to the other on his heavy white legs.

  Zoe Catherine straightens a little table with her foot before putting down the tray, then she hands Lex and me our glasses of wine. Lex, however, is so entranced by watching Genghis that she has to pry open his hand to place the glass in it.

  “What’s wrong with you, Man of Maine?” She grins, looking my way and winking. “Never seen a peacock before?”

  On the ride home, I’m so excited that I blather on and on about the work on the retreat site. Only when Lex makes a mock snoring sound do I stop myself, putting a hand to my mouth. “Oh, Lord, I’m getting to be such a bore.”

  “Getting to be?”

  “And it’s too late for you to be out. We shouldn’t have stayed for supper.”

  I feel guilty; I was sitting in the hospital room when the cardiologist specifically told Lex that for the next month, he should be in bed by ten, even if just to rest. “Sit up and read awhile,” the doctor suggested. “Rest is an important part of a full recovery.” As is diet, yet Lex glared at me tonight when I asked Zoe if she could broil the fresh-caught speckled trout she and Lex had cleaned, instead of frying them. Zoe looked at me as if I’d asked her to smother the fish in crème fraîche and serve it over a bed of arugula. She’s never prepared fish any way but deep-fried, with hush puppies and onion rings bobbling in the hot grease next to the cornmeal-coated fillets until everything is golden-brown and glistening with cholesterol. With her fried fish, Zoe serves coleslaw so thick with mayo, it’s hard to detect the presence of shredded cabbage. I tried to compensate by selecting the smallest fillet, one hush puppy, and a tablespoon of the rich coleslaw, then grimaced to see Lex pile his plate high, grease-deprived after two weeks of a heart-healthy diet.

  Good thing was, no need for me to have worried about Zoe Catherine and Lex hitting it off. Once I got her to describe how she trained the wedding doves, she had him in the palm of her hand. Part of the way Zoe supports herself is with her ceremonial white doves. They are in great demand at outdoor weddings, where she releases two dozen of them from a golden cage. No matter how far she’s traveled for the wedding, the doves always make it back home, she’s trained them so well. Or the way Zoe tells it, she has yet to lose one, even to an overzealous, camouflage-dressed redneck eager to flush out a nice covey of birds for his supper.

  “Tell me the truth, Lex,” I say. “The inside of the fish camp has to be totally gutted. Do you think the renovations will be ready so I can schedule the first retreat for early spring?”

  Lex nods solemnly. “Should be, if the weather holds out and Mr. Johnson starts next week, like he promised you. Sounds like he’s got a good-sized crew, so shouldn’t be any problem there. Hey—you still want me to get the guy who did the sign for the marina to do yours?”

  “Yep. I don’t want folks going to Zoe’s cabin by mistake.”

  “You’d have to start a whole new retreat for them to recover from the shock. But you’ll need two signs, won’t you, one fo
r the building and one at the turnoff from the highway? Cost you twice as much, natch.”

  “Oh, God, I hadn’t thought of that. No one will find it unless I have a sign on the highway, will they?”

  Even in the darkness of the Jeep, I can see that Lex’s eyes are full of mischief. “What will your sign say—‘Devastated, Depressed, and Divorced? Follow the Arrows’?”

  “Very funny.” I think about it, then shake my head. “On second thought, Zoe already has a sign at the turnoff. The stuff going out to the participants will include directions to the Landing Bird Sanctuary off of Highway One, so I won’t need my own sign. Matter of fact, some of the participants wouldn’t want our sign at the entrance anyhow.”

  Lex looks startled. “You mean they’re afraid their exes might track them down? Do things like that really happen?”

  I glance at him to see if he’s serious, then realize that, like most people, he has no idea. He’d be shocked at the number of restraining orders, the 911 calls, and the subpoenas that are an everyday part of my professional life.

  “It happens all the time. Jesus, you’ve seen for yourself how crazy folks act when they’re going through a divorce. Main reason I’m calling the retreat site Wayfarer’s Landing is, the name reveals nothing about the nature of it. Could be a gathering of boaters or something.”

  “What the hell is a wayfarer, anyway?”

  “Once I started doing the retreats, I had to call them something, so I decided on Wayfarers. It works for either gender, and I plan to start some all-male retreats eventually, as you know. Besides, it’s metaphorical, something your unromantic brain can’t comprehend.”

  “Bull. I’m the most romantic man you’ll ever meet. What you’re saying is, you don’t know what a wayfarer is, either.”

  “I most certainly do. It’s a poetic way of calling someone a voyager. The original meaning was to travel on foot, I believe, but basically it means any kind of traveler.”

  “Ah! I’m a sea captain, so that makes me a wayfarer, right?”

  “Yeah, but that’s literal, not figurative. You’re also a wayfarer in life. We all are.”

  Lex wrinkles his nose. “Too touchy-feely for me. Remind me never to come to one of your retreats.”

  “I’m signing you up for the first one. God knows, you need it.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You won’t catch me dancing in a circle or taking part in those weird ceremonies or any of that other bullshit you’ve told me about. No way.”

  “When you attend one, it’ll be such a great experience, you’ll sign up as a volunteer for the future ones,” I say, smiling. “Just you wait and see.”

  “Yeah, right. That’ll be the day.”

  “You do know what Dory named my corps of volunteers, don’t you?”

  “No, but I’ll bet it has something to do with circles.” Dory makes no secret of her obsession with circles, which she believes have magical properties. She’s always been fascinated with symbols and mythology, too, and finds meaning in numbers, colors, sizes, and shapes, something that amuses Lex to no end.

  “They call themselves the White Ring Society,” I tell him. “Or mostly the White Rings.”

  “They’re all white women?”

  I hoot, shaking my head. “Of course not. Jesus, you’re hopeless! Here’s what it means. When you divorce, first thing you do is remove your wedding band, and what does it leave? The imprint of where it was, a faint white circle around your finger.” I roll my eyes when Lex raises his left hand above the steering wheel to look at his ring finger. “Have you always been such a literalist? The white circle doesn’t last—it’s not like a brand or something.”

  One way I’ve financed the retreats—which have been held at the local convention center, as today’s paper so helpfully pointed out—is by using volunteers, participants from previous retreats. The volunteers identify themselves with name tags, which they’ve come to regard as badges of honor. The name tags are made by Dory, small wooden rings that she paints with their names and all sorts of weird symbols based on what she knows about each one; then she hangs the rings from a cord so the women can wear them around their necks and be easily spotted by the retreat participants. I imagine that once again Son will try to talk Dory out of working with the White Rings. After their youngest left for college, he tried to convince her that she’d spent her life giving to others, and now she had the opportunity to focus on herself. Naturally I translated that as focus on him.

  Lex turns the Jeep down Fairview Street to my house, and I experience the lift I always do at seeing my street at night, its overhanging oaks dappled in moon shadows and the muted glow of streetlamps. I fell in love with this street and the house the moment I laid eyes on them, and that feeling has never left me, in spite of everything. The house belonged to a maiden aunt of Mack’s, and Papa Mack bought it for us as a wedding gift on the condition that we renovate it. Although it was a great old house with what had once been widely famed formal gardens in back, it was almost falling down when we moved in, a young couple in our twenties with no idea where to begin either our lives or the renovations. But ultimately it was the project that got Mack into the business of preserving old houses and, more indirectly, pushed me toward what was to become my career path.

  “It’s a lovely sight, isn’t it?” I murmur. On Lex’s initial visit to my house, he had the same reaction I did on seeing it for the first time. He stood in the entrance hall, hands on hips, then removed his baseball cap reverently. “I’ll be damned,” he said with a whistle. “So this is what you guys mean by Southern Gothic.” Technically it wasn’t, since Fairhope wasn’t founded until the 1890s, and the houses built by the single-tax colony were plain and austere rather than Gothic. But our rambling old Victorian, built a few years later, seemed grand in comparison.

  When we reach the end of the street and my house on the corner lot, I see a car parked out front. I look over for Lex’s reaction, and he groans.

  “Well, well. Look who’s here,” I say as he pulls the Jeep behind the silver Lexus and grinds to a halt.

  With a wry grin, he says, “Why don’t I just drop you off and haul ass?”

  “Leaving me to face her alone? Oh, no, you don’t.”

  I open the passenger door and take a deep breath before getting out. This is all I need after a day that has included not only the letter and Son’s appearance in the coffee shop but also the anxiety over my meeting with George Johnson. A woman is standing on the front portico of my house, partially hidden in the riotous jasmine covering the latticework. She hears the sound of the Jeep and starts down the steps, her head lowered. The faceted-glass bulb of the lamp over the curved front door shines down like a spotlight and turns her silver-blond hair the color of moonlight. I straighten my shoulders and start toward her. Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough, Lex’s ex-wife, who has been nothing but trouble since the first day she and I met.

  It was about this time last year when I saw that Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough was on the list of my afternoon appointments. I’d been surprised to see her name; when we’d first met, she’d hinted that she might be coming to see me, but I hadn’t expected her. As a therapist, you develop a feel for potential clients, and Elinor did not strike me as a serious candidate for therapy, especially the kind that I do. I rarely have success with anyone who refuses to follow up with group work, and she had let me know in no uncertain terms that kind of therapy did not appeal to her.

  At one time Lex and Elinor Yarbrough’s (or Eaton-Yarbrough, the name she uses professionally) move into Fairhope would have been the talk of the town, and they still created quite a stir. Over the last few years, however, Fairhope has become such a hot spot on the Gulf Coast that the appearance of new people is more commonplace, and our population includes several nationally known writers as well as Nall, a world-famous artist who studied with Salvador Dalí. Although everyone in town was talking about the retired naval captain who purchased and would be running the new marina, it was when his wife appeared and opene
d an expensive boutique downtown that the tongues really wagged. Actually, it was Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough herself, rather than her upscale boutique by the name of My Fair Lady, that attracted the attention of the locals. Everybody was going in just to catch a glimpse of her.

  A few weeks after My Fair Lady opened, I’d gone in, too, but not out of curiosity. I desperately needed a suitable outfit for a presentation I was giving at a conference in Chicago, and I was willing to splurge on it. The initial article on my work with divorcing women had just come out in a magazine; I’d been on national TV, and it was the first time I’d been asked to be the keynote speaker at a prestigious conference of my peers. I’d never been one to pay much attention to my appearance, but I wanted to look as confident and put together as I could for the occasion. I was surprised when Elinor herself waited on me. Since I’ve always been hopelessly fashion-challenged, she listened intently when I said I needed a couple of smart outfits for a conference I was attending, one for the talk and one for a reception the day before. What I didn’t tell her was, if I didn’t dress the part and feel confident in myself, I’d give myself away, and everyone at the conference would be able to tell I was terrified.

  I’d already heard all about the glamorous Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough, and she didn’t disappoint. She was everything I expected and more. Had I met her on the street, I would’ve figured her to be European, French maybe, because her obvious sophistication was so out of place among the laid-back population of Fairhope. Although I’d already heard from the town gossips that Elinor was in her early fifties, she made the lovely young college girls she hired in the boutique look unformed and insipid in comparison. She was absolutely stunning, a statuesque blonde with high cheekbones, ice-blue eyes, and the confident carriage of a runway model. Fairhope had never seen anything quite like her. The men of town looked at her as though a goddess had landed in their midst, and the women jealously speculated on everything from the color of her pale eyes (surely that color could be obtained only with contacts!) to her flawless skin (did the credit go to the shockingly expensive creams she sold in the boutique or to a face-lift?).